XXII
A sweet exhaustion seems to hold
In spells of calm the shrouded eve:
The gorse itself a beamless gold
Puts forth: yet nothing seems to grieve.
The dewy chaplets hang on air;
The willowy fields are silver-grey;
Sad odours wander here and there;
And yet we feel that it is May.
Relaxed and with a broken flow
From dripping bowers low carols swell
In mellower, glassier tones, as though
They mounted through a bubbling well.
The crimson orchis scarce sustains
Upon its drenched and drooping spire
The burden of the warm soft rains;
The purple hills grow nigh and nigher.
Nature, suspending lovely toils,
On expectations lovelier broods,
Listening, with lifted hand, while coils
The flooded rivulet through the woods.
She sees, drawn out in vision clear,
A world with summer radiance drest
And all the glories of that year
Still sleeping in her sacred breast.
~~
Aubrey Thomas de Vere (1814-1902)
from May Carols, 1867
[Poem is in the public domain worldwide]
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