Astrophel and Other Poems | Page 3

that beholds not a cloudlet
weep
Imbues and impregnates life with delight more deep
Than
dawn or sunset or moonrise on lawns or glades
Can shed from the
skies that receive it and may not keep.
The skies may hold not the splendour of sundown fast;
It wanes into
twilight as dawn dies down into day.
And the moon, triumphant when
twilight is overpast,
Takes pride but awhile in the hours of her stately
sway. But the might of the noon, though the light of it pass away,
Leaves earth fulfilled of desires and of dreams that last; But if any there
be that hath sense of them none can say.
For if any there be that hath sight of them, sense, or trust Made strong
by the might of a vision, the strength of a dream, His lips shall straiten
and close as a dead man's must, His heart shall be sealed as the voice of
a frost-bound stream. For the deep mid mystery of light and of heat that
seem To clasp and pierce dark earth, and enkindle dust,
Shall a man's
faith say what it is? or a man's guess deem?
Sleep lies not heavier on eyes that have watched all night Than hangs
the heat of the noon on the hills and trees. Why now should the haze
not open, and yield to sight
A fairer secret than hope or than slumber
sees?
I seek not heaven with submission of lips and knees, With

worship and prayer for a sign till it leap to light: I gaze on the gods
about me, and call on these.
I call on the gods hard by, the divine dim powers
Whose likeness is
here at hand, in the breathless air, In the pulseless peace of the fervid
and silent flowers, In the faint sweet speech of the waters that whisper
there. Ah, what should darkness do in a world so fair?
The bent-grass
heaves not, the couch-grass quails not or cowers; The wind's kiss frets
not the rowan's or aspen's hair.
But the silence trembles with passion of sound suppressed, And the
twilight quivers and yearns to the sunward, wrung With love as with
pain; and the wide wood's motionless breast Is thrilled with a dumb
desire that would fain find tongue And palpitates, tongueless as she
whom a man-snake stung, Whose heart now heaves in the nightingale,
never at rest Nor satiated ever with song till her last be sung.
Is it rapture or terror that circles me round, and invades Each vein of
my life with hope--if it be not fear?
Each pulse that awakens my
blood into rapture fades,
Each pulse that subsides into dread of a
strange thing near Requickens with sense of a terror less dread than
dear. Is peace not one with light in the deep green glades
Where
summer at noonday slumbers? Is peace not here?
The tall thin stems of the firs, and the roof sublime
That screens from
the sun the floor of the steep still wood, Deep, silent, splendid, and
perfect and calm as time,
Stand fast as ever in sight of the night they
stood, When night gave all that moonlight and dewfall could. The
dense ferns deepen, the moss glows warm as the thyme: The wild heath
quivers about me: the world is good.
Is it Pan's breath, fierce in the tremulous maidenhair, That bids fear
creep as a snake through the woodlands, felt In the leaves that it stirs
not yet, in the mute bright air, In the stress of the sun? For here has the
great God dwelt: For hence were the shafts of his love or his anger
dealt. For here has his wrath been fierce as his love was fair, When
each was as fire to the darkness its breath bade melt.

Is it love, is it dread, that enkindles the trembling noon, That yearns,
reluctant in rapture that fear has fed, As man for woman, as woman for
man? Full soon,
If I live, and the life that may look on him drop not
dead, Shall the ear that hears not a leaf quake hear his tread, The sense
that knows not the sound of the deep day's tune Receive the God, be it
love that he brings or dread.
The naked noon is upon me: the fierce dumb spell,
The fearful charm
of the strong sun's imminent might, Unmerciful, steadfast, deeper than
seas that swell,
Pervades, invades, appals me with loveless light,

With harsher awe than breathes in the breath of night. Have mercy,
God who art all! For I know thee well,
How sharp is thine eye to
lighten, thine hand to smite.
The whole wood feels thee, the whole air fears thee: but fear So deep,
so dim, so sacred, is wellnigh sweet.
For the light that hangs and
broods on the woodlands here, Intense, invasive, intolerant, imperious,
and meet
To lighten the works