A Dark Month | Page 6

a star;

None that seers importune
Till a sign be won:
Star of our good
fortune,
Rise and reign, our sun!
XXVII
I pass by the small room now forlorn
Where once each night as I
passed I knew
A child's bright sleep from even to morn
Made sweet
the whole night through.
As a soundless shell, as a songless nest,
Seems now the room that
was radiant then
And fragrant with his happier rest
Than that of
slumbering men.
The day therein is less than the day,
The night is indeed night now
therein:
Heavier the dark seems there to weigh,
And slower the
dawns begin.
As a nest fulfilled with birds, as a shell
Fulfilled with breath of a
god's own hymn,
Again shall be this bare blank cell,
Made sweet
again with him.
XXVIII
Spring darkens before us,
A flame going down,
With chant from
the chorus
Of days without crown--
Cloud, rain, and sonorous

Soft wind on the down.
She is wearier not of us
Than we of the dream
That spring was to
love us
And joy was to gleam
Through the shadows above us

That shift as they stream.
Half dark and half hoary,
Float far on the loud
Mild wind, as a
glory
Half pale and half proud
From the twilight of story,
Her
tresses of cloud;
Like phantoms that glimmer
Of glories of old
With ever yet

dimmer
Pale circlets of gold
As darkness grows grimmer
And
memory more cold.
Like hope growing clearer
With wane of the moon,
Shines toward
us the nearer
Gold frontlet of June,
And a face with it dearer
Than
midsummer noon.
XXIX
You send me your love in a letter,
I send you my love in a song:
Ah
child, your gift is the better,
Mine does you but wrong.
No fame, were the best less brittle,
No praise, were it wide as earth,

Is worth so much as a little
Child's love may be worth.
We see the children above us
As they might angels above:
Come
back to us, child, if you love us,
And bring us your love.
XXX
No time for books or for letters:
What time should there be?
No
room for tasks and their fetters:
Full room to be free.
The wind and the sun and the Maytime
Had never a guest
More
worthy the most that his playtime
Could give of its best.
If rain should come on, peradventure,
(But sunshine forbid!)
Vain
hope in us haply might venture
To dream as it did.
But never may come, of all comers
Least welcome, the rain,
To mix
with his servant the summer's
Rose-garlanded train!
He would write, but his hours are as busy
As bees in the sun,
And
the jubilant whirl of their dizzy
Dance never is done.
The message is more than a letter,
Let love understand,
And the

thought of his joys even better
Than sight of his hand.
XXXI
Wind, high-souled, full-hearted
South-west wind of the spring!
Ere
April and earth had parted,
Skies, bright with thy forward wing,

Grew dark in an hour with the shadow behind it, that bade not a
bird dare sing.
Wind whose feet are sunny,
Wind whose wings are cloud,
With lips
more sweet than honey
Still, speak they low or loud,
Rejoice now
again in the strength of thine heart: let the depth of
thy soul wax proud.
We hear thee singing or sighing,
Just not given to sight,
All but
visibly flying
Between the clouds and the light,
And the light in our
hearts is enkindled, the shadow therein of the
clouds put to flight.
From the gift of thine hands we gather
The core of the flowers therein,

Keen glad heart of heather,
Hot sweet heart of whin,
Twin
breaths in thy godlike breath close blended of wild spring's
wildest of kin.
All but visibly beating
We feel thy wings in the far
Clear waste, and
the plumes of them fleeting,
Soft as swan's plumes are,
And strong
as a wild swan's pinions, and swift as the flash of the
flight of a star.
As the flight of a planet enkindled
Seems thy far soft flight
Now
May's reign has dwindled
And the crescent of June takes light
And
the presence of summer is here, and the hope of a welcomer

presence in sight.
Wind, sweet-souled, great-hearted
Southwest wind on the wold!

From us is a glory departed
That now shall return as of old,
Borne
back on thy wings as an eagle's expanding, and crowned with
the sundawn's gold.
There is not a flower but rejoices,
There is not a leaf but has heard:

All the fields find voices,
All the woods are stirred:
There is not a
nest but is brighter because of the coming of one
bright bird.
Out of dawn and morning,
Noon and afternoon,
The sun to the
world gives warning
Of news that brightens the moon;
And the
stars all night exult with us, hearing of joy that shall
come with June.
{Transcriber's note:
The line in number VII
To far outshines the sun,
appears thus in the original. It may be a misprint.}
End of Project Gutenberg's A Dark Month, by Algernon Charles
Swinburne
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