Act 4 — FROM APRIL TO OCTOBER

The beauty of the world, the loveliness Of woodland pools, which doves have coo’d to sleep, Dreaming the noontide through beneath the deep Of heaven; the radiant blue’s benign caress When April clouds are rifted; buds that bless Each little nook and bower, where the leaves keep Dew and light shadow, and quick lizards peep For sunshine,—these, and the ancient stars no less, And the sea’s mystery of dusk and bright Are but the curious characters that lie, Priestess of Beauty, in thy robe of light. Ah, where, divine One, is thy veiled retreat, That I may creep to it and clasp thy feet, And gaze in thy pure face though I should die?

A lonely way, and as I went my eyes Could not unfasten from the Spring’s sweet things, Lush-sprouted grass, and all that climbs and clings In loose, deep hedges, where the primrose lies In her own fairness, buried blooms surprise The plunderer bee and stop his murmurings, And the glad flutter of a finch’s wings Outstartle small blue-speckled butterflies. Blissfully did one speedwell plot beguile My whole heart long; I loved each separate flower, Kneeling. I looked up suddenly—Dear God! There stretched the shining plain for many a mile, The mountains rose with what invincible power! And how the sky was fathomless and broad!

The Dawn,—O silence and wise mystery! Was it a dream, the murmurous room, the glitter, The tinkling songs, the dance, and that fair sitter I talk’d æsthetics to so rapturously? Sweet Heaven, thy silentness and purity, Thy sister-words of blame, not railings bitter, With these great quiet leaves, and the light twitter Of small birds wakening in the greenery, And one stream stepping quickly on its way So well it knows the glad work it must do, Reclaim a wayward heart scarce answering true To that sweet strain of hours that closes May; How the pale marge quickens with pulsings new, O welcome to thy world thou fair, great day!

There drops our lark into his secret nest! All is felt silence and the broad blue sky; Come, the incessant rain of melody Is over; now earth’s quietudes invest, In cool and shadowy limit, that wild breast Which trembled forth the sudden ecstasy Till raptures came too swift, and song must die Since midmost deeps of heaven grew manifest. My poet of the garden-walk last night Sang in rich leisure, ceased and sang again, Of pleasure in green leaves, of odours given By flowers at dusk, and many a dim delight; The finer joy was thine keen-edged with pain, Soarer! alone with thy own heart and heaven.

“Only a mill-race,” said they, and went by, But we were wiser, spoke no word, and stayed; It was a place to make the heart afraid With so much beauty, lest the after sigh, When one had drunk its sweetness utterly, Should leave the spirit faint; a living shade From beechen branches o’er the water played To unweave that spell through which the conquering sky Subdues the sweet will of each summer stream; So this ran freshlier through the swaying weeds. I gazed until the whole was as a dream, Nor should have waked or wondered had I seen Some smooth-limbed wood-nymph glance across the green, Or Naiad lift a head amongst the reeds.

A place where Una might have fallen asleep Assured of quiet dreams, a place to make Sad eyes bright with strange tears; a little lake In the green heart of a wood; the crystal deep Of heaven so wide if there should chance to stray Into that stainless field some thin cloud-flake, When not a breeze the trance of noon dare break, About the middle it must melt away. Lilies upon the water in their leaves, Stirr’d by faint ripples that go curving on To little reedy coves; a stream that grieves To the fine grasses and wild flowers around; And we two in a golden silence bound, Not a line read of rich Endymion.

Nightward on dimmest wing in Twilight’s train The grey hours floated smoothly, lingeringly; A solemn wonder was the western sky Rich with the slow forsaking sunset-stain, Barred by long violet cloud; hillside and plain The feet of Night had touched; a wind’s low sigh Told of whole pleasure lapsed,—then rustled by With soft subsidence in the rippling grain. Why in dark dews, unready to depart, Did Evening pause and ponder, nor perceive Star follow star into the central blue? What secret was the burden of her heart? What grave, sweet memory grew she loath to leave? What finer sense, no morrow may renew?

Why do I make no poems? Good my friend Now is there silence through the summer woods, In whose green depths and lawny solitudes The light is dreaming; voicings clear ascend Now from no hollow where glad rivulets wend, But murmurings low of inarticulate moods, Softer than stir of unfledged cushat broods, Breathe, till o’erdrowsed the heavy flower-heads bend. Now sleep the crystal and heart-charmèd waves Round white, sunstricken rocks the noontide long, Or ’mid the coolness of dim lighted caves Sway in a trance of vague deliciousness; And I,—I am too deep in joy’s excess For the imperfect impulse of a song.

Spring scarce had greener fields to show than these Of mid September; through the still warm noon The rivulets ripple forth a gladder tune Than ever in the summer; from the trees Dusk-green, and murmuring inward melodies, No leaf drops yet; only our evenings swoon In pallid skies more suddenly, and the moon Finds motionless white mists out on the leas. Dear chance it were in some rough wood-god’s lair A month hence, gazing on the last bright field, To sink o’er-drowsed, and dream that wild-flowers blew Around my head and feet silently there, Till Spring’s glad choir adown the valley pealed, And violets trembled in the morning dew.

A still grey evening: Autumn in the sky, And Autumn on the hills and the sad wold; No congregated towers of pearl and gold In the vaporous West, no fiend limned duskily, No angel whose reared trump must soon be loud, Nor mountains which some pale green lake enfold Nor islands in an ocean glacial-cold; Hardly indeed a noticeable cloud. Yet here I lingered, all my will asleep, Gazing an hour with neither joy nor pain, No noonday trance in midsummer more deep; And wake with a vague yearning in the dim, Blind room, my heart scarce able to restrain The idle tears that tremble to the brim.

O what a morn is this for us who knew The large, blue, summer mornings, heaven let down Upon the earth for men to drink, the crown Of perfect human living, when we grew Great-hearted like the Gods! Come, we will strew White ashes on our hair, nor strive to drown In faint hymn to the year’s fulfilled renown The sterile grief which is the season’s due. Lightly above the vine-rows of rich hills Where the brown peasant girls move amid grapes The swallow glances; let him cry for glee! But yon pale mist diffused ’twixt paler shapes,— Once sovereign trees,—my spirit also fills, And an east-wind comes moaning from the sea.