Wan August _in extremis_ lay: He knew that the approaching day Consigned him to the solemn tomb Which yawned upon him through the gloom. The summer flowers were on their wane; And silently, like one in pain, Who hides his pangs from loving eyes, The brooks looked calmly toward the skies. A little circle in a wood— The heart of the old solitude— Lay wrapped in something more than sleep— A boding silence, stern and deep. Suddenly, from a distant bell, Ten several sounds fell, like a knell, And like a sigh (which was despair) A shudder thrilled the tremulous air. The leaves fell rustling from the trees, The grasses shivered in the breeze, As Saturn, with complacent eye, Walked coldly up the central sky. Slowly among the quivering limbs Come hollow moons, like funeral hymns; The trees, aroused from slumber, wail Before the occidental gale. The clouds, in horror, hurry by; Unusual darkness drowns the sky; The moon moves with suspended breath, Like one who dreads the approach of death. The stars expire, the moon grows dim, The wind has ceased to be a hymn, And through the arches of the wood Roars, like a lion scenting blood. Above the wind, whose surging sound The brazen tumult almost drowned, Pealing and ringing as it passed, A clarion’s clamor filled the blast. Along the earth, among the elms Who shook and clanged their hoary helms, And waved their arms in wild despite, Again that summons filled the night. Up, piercing space, again it rung Where fair-haired Lyra sat and sung Like Sappho, in a passionate trance, Stunning her with its dissonance. The little vista of the wood Suddenly in the darkness stood Flushed with a wild, unusual light, Which filled the filmy eyes of night. From oak and elm, from beech and larch, That crowned the vista, like an arch, Between whose leaves, like frowning eyes, Came glimpses of the gloomy skies; From Asia’s sultry hills and vales, From far Topróbanè’s dells and dales, From Ganges’ source, from Niger’s side, And turbid Nile’s eternal tide; From England’s fields, from Scotland’s glens, From Ireland’s mosses, bogs and fens; From sunny France, from swarthy Spain, As if the skies shed golden rain,