Hawthorn and Lavender Part 4

What but to take this mighty Summer As it were made for me and you?

Take it and live it beam by beam, Motes of light on a gleaming stream, Glare by glare and glory on glory Through to the ash of this flaming dream!

x.x.xII

The downs, like uplands in Eden, Gleam in an afterglow Like a rose-world ruining earthwards-- Mystical, wistful, slow!

Near and afar in the leaf.a.ge, That last glad call to the nest!

And the thought of you hangs and triumphs With Hesper low in the west!

Till the song and the light and the colour, The pa.s.sion of earth and sky, Are blent in a rapture of boding Of the death we should one day die.

x.x.xIII

The time of the silence Of birds is upon us: Rust in the chestnut leaf, Dust in the stubble: The turn of the Year And the call to decay.

Stately and splendid, The Summer pa.s.ses: Sad with satiety, Sick with fulfilment; Spent and consumed, But august till the end.

By wilting hedgerows And white-hot highways, Bearing its memories Even as a burden, The tired heart plods For a place of rest.

x.x.xIV

There was no kiss that day?

No intimate Yea-and-Nay, No sweets in hand, no tender, lingering touch?

None of those desperate, exquisite caresses, So instant--O, so brief!--and yet so much, The thought of the swiftest lifts and blesses?

Nor any one of those great royal words, Those sovran privacies of speech, Frank as the call of April birds, That, whispered, live a life of gold Among the heart's still sainted memories, And irk, and thrill, and ravish, and beseech, Even when the dream of dreams in death's a-cold?

No, there was none of these, Dear one, and yet-- O, eyes on eyes! O, voices breaking still, For all the watchful will, Into a kinder kindness than seemed due From you to me, and me to you!

And that hot-eyed, close-throated, blind regret Of woman and man baulked and debarred the blue!-- No kiss--no kiss that day?

Nay, rather, though we seemed to wear the rue, Sweet friend, how many, and how goodly--say!

x.x.xV

Sing to me, sing, and sing again, My glad, great-throated nightingale: Sing, as the good sun through the rain-- Sing, as the home-wind in the sail!

Sing to me life, and toil, and time, O bugle of dawn, O flute of rest!

Sing, and once more, as in the prime, There shall be naught but seems the best.

And sing me at the last of love: Sing that old magic of the May, That makes the great world laugh and move As lightly as our dream to-day!

x.x.xVI

_We sat late_, _late_--_talking of many things_.

_He told me of his grief_, _and_, _in the telling_, _The gist of his tale showed to me_, _rhymed_, _like this_.

It came, the news, like a fire in the night, That life and its best were done; And there was never so dazed a wretch In the beat of the living sun.

I read the news, and the terms of the news Reeled random round my brain Like the senseless, tedious buzzle and boom Of a bluefly in the pane.

So I went for the news to the house of the news, But the words were left unsaid, For the face of the house was blank with blinds, And I knew that she was dead.

x.x.xVII

'Twas in a world of living leaves That we two reaped and bound our sheaves: They were of white roses and red, And in the scything they were dead.

Now the high Autumn flames afield, And what is all his golden yield To that we took, and sheaved, and bound In the green dusk that gladdened round?

Yet must the memory grieve and ache Of that we did for dear love's sake, But may no more under the sun, Being, like our summer, spent and done.

x.x.xVIII

Since those we love and those we hate, With all things mean and all things great, Pa.s.s in a desperate disarray _Over the hills and far away_:

It must be, Dear, that, late or soon, Out of the ken of the watching moon, We shall abscond with Yesterday _Over the hills and far away_.

What does it matter? As I deem, We shall but follow as brave a dream As ever smiled a wanton May _Over the hills and far away_.

We shall remember, and, in pride, Fare forth, fulfilled and satisfied, Into the land of Ever-and-Aye, _Over the hills and far away_.

x.x.xIX

These were the woods of wonder We found so close and boon, When the bride-month in her beauty Lay mouth to mouth with June.

November, the old, lean widow, Sniffs, and snivels, and shrills, And the bowers are all dismantled, And the long gra.s.s wets and chills;

And I hate these dismal dawnings, These miserable even-ends, These orts, and rags, and heeltaps-- This dream of being merely friends.