The long day closes; The last light fades in the amber sky; Warm through the warm dusk glow the roses, And a heavier shade drops slowly from the trees, While through the garden as all colours die The scents come livelier on the quickening breeze. The world grows larger, vaguer, dimmer, Over the dark laurels a few faint stars glimmer; The moon, that was a pallid ghost, Hung low on the horizon, faint and lost, Comes up, a full and splendid golden round By black and sharp-cut foliage overcrossed. The girls laugh and whisper now with hardly a sound Till all sound vanishes, dispersed in the night, Like a wisp of cloud that fades in the moon's light, And the garden grows silent and the shadows grow Deeper and blacker below The mysteriously moving and murmuring trees, That stand out darkly against the star-luminous sky; Huge stand the trees, Shadowy, whispering immensities, That rain down quietude and darkness on heart and eye. None move, none speak, none sigh But from the laurels comes a leaping voice Crying in tones that seem not man's nor boy's, But only joy's, And hard behind a loud tumultuous crying, A tangled skein of noise, And the girls see their lovers come, each vying Against the next in glad and confident poise, Or softly moving To the side of the chosen with gentle words and loving Gifts for her pleasure of sweetmeats and jewelled toys. Dear Love, whose strength no pedantry can stir, Whether in thine iron enemies, Or in thine own strayed follower Bemused with subtleties and sophistries, Now dost thou rule the garden, now The gatherers' hands have grasped the scented bough. Slow the sweet hours resolve, and one by one are sped. The garden lieth empty. Overhead A nightjar rustles by, wing touching wing, And passes, uttering His hoarse and whirring note. The daylight birds long since are fled, Nor has the moon yet touched the brown bird's throat. All's quiet, all is silent, all around The day's heat rises gently from the ground, And still the broad moon travels up the sky, Now glancing through the trees and now so high That all the garden through her rays are shed, And from the laurels one can just descry Where in the distance looms enormously The old house, with all its windows black and dead. SONG As I lay in the early sun, Stretched in the grass, I thought upon My true love, my dear love, Who has my heart for ever, Who is my happiness when we meet, My sorrow when we sever. She is all fire when I do burn, Gentle when I moody turn, Brave when I am sad and heavy And all laughter when I am merry. And so I lay and dreamed and dreamed, And so the day wheeled on, While all the birds with thoughts like mine Were singing to the sun. * * * * * FREDEGOND SHOVE A DREAM IN EARLY SPRING