Summer Past / John Gray

Summer Past

    (To Oscar Wilde)

    There was the summer. There
    Warm hours of leaf-lipped song,
    And dripping amber sweat.
            O sweet to see
The great trees condescend to cast a pearl
Down to the myrtles; and the proud leaves curl
            In ecstasy.

    Fruit of a quest, despair.
    Smart of a sullen wrong.
    Where may they hide them yet?
            One hour, yet one,
To find the mossgod lurking in his nest,
To see the naiads' floating hair, caressed
            By fragrant sun-

    Beams. Softly lulled the eves
    The song-tired birds to sleep,
    That other things might tell
            Their secrecies.
The beetle humming neath the fallen leaves.
Deep in what hollow do the stern gods keep
Their bitter silence? By what listening well
            Where holy trees,

Song-set, unfurl eternally the sheen
            Of restless green?

~~

John Gray (1866-1934)
from Silverpoints, 1893

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the Unites States, and the European Union]

John Gray biography

 Silverpoints read for LibriVox.org. Courtesy LibriVox Audiobooks.

("Summer Past" begins at 13:12)