Astrophel and Other Poems | Page 7

the sundown, stilled and splendid, spread as a
flower that spreads,?Pave with rarer device and fairer than heaven's the luminous
oyster-beds,?Grass-embanked, and in square plots ranked, inlaid with gems that
the sundown sheds.
Squares more bright and with lovelier light than heaven that
kindled it shines with shine?Warm and soft as the dome aloft, but heavenlier yet than the sun's
own shrine:?Heaven is high, but the water-sky lit here seems deeper and more
divine.
Flowers on flowers, that the whole world's bowers may show not,
here may the sunset show,?Lightly graven in the waters paven with ghostly gold by the clouds
aglow:?Bright as love is the vault above, but lovelier lightens the wave
below.
Rosy grey, or as fiery spray full-plumed, or greener than emerald,
gleams?Plot by plot as the skies allot for each its glory, divine as
dreams?Lit with fire of appeased desire which sounds the secret of all
that seems;
Dreams that show what we fain would know, and know not save by the
grace of sleep,?Sleep whose hands have removed the bands that eyes long waking and
fain to weep?Feel fast bound on them--light around them strange, and darkness
above them steep.
Yet no vision that heals division of love from love, and renews
awhile?Life and breath in the lips where death has quenched the spirit of
speech and smile,?Shows on earth, or in heaven's mid mirth, where no fears enter or
doubts defile,
Aught more fair than the radiant air and water here by the twilight
wed,?Here made one by the waning sun whose last love quickens to
rosebright red?Half the crown of the soft high down that rears to northward its
wood-girt head.
There, when day is at height of sway, men's eyes who stand, as we
oft have stood,?High where towers with its world of flowers the golden spinny that
flanks the wood,?See before and around them shore and seaboard glad as their gifts
are good.
Higher and higher to the north aspire the green smooth-swelling
unending downs;?East and west on the brave earth's breast glow girdle-jewels of
gleaming towns;?Southward shining, the lands declining subside in peace that the
sea's light crowns.
Westward wide in its fruitful pride the plain lies lordly with
plenteous grace;?Fair as dawn's when the fields and lawns desire her glitters the
glad land's face:?Eastward yet is the sole sign set of elder days and a lordlier
race.
Down beneath us afar, where seethe in wilder weather the tides
aflow,?Hurled up hither and drawn down thither in quest of rest that they
may not know,?Still as dew on a flower the blue broad stream now sleeps in the
fields below.
Mild and bland in the fair green land it smiles, and takes to its
heart the sky;?Scarce the meads and the fens, the reeds and grasses, still as they
stand or lie,?Wear the palm of a statelier calm than rests on waters that pass
them by.
Yet shall these, when the winds and seas of equal days and coequal
nights?Rage, rejoice, and uplift a voice whose sound is even as a sword
that smites,?Felt and heard as a doomsman's word from seaward reaches to
landward heights,
Lift their heart up, and take their part of triumph, swollen and
strong with rage,?Rage elate with desire and great with pride that tempest and storm
assuage;?So their chime in the ear of time has rung from age to rekindled
age.
Fair and dear is the land's face here, and fair man's work as a
man's may be:?Dear and fair as the sunbright air is here the record that speaks
him free;?Free by birth of a sacred earth, and regent ever of all the sea.
AN AUTUMN VISION
OCTOBER 31, 1889
+Zephyrou gigantos aura+
I
Is it Midsummer here in the heavens that illumine October on earth? Can the year, when his heart is fulfilled with desire of the days
of his mirth,?Redeem them, recall, or remember??For a memory recalling the rapture of earth, and redeeming the sky, Shines down from the heights to the depths: will the watchword of
dawn be July?When to-morrow acclaims November??The stern salutation of sorrow to death or repentance to shame Was all that the season was wont to accord her of grace or acclaim;
No lightnings of love and of laughter.?But here, in the laugh of the loud west wind from around and above, In the flash of the waters beneath him, what sound or what light
but of love?Rings round him or leaps forth after?
II
Wind beloved of earth and sky and sea beyond all winds that blow, Wind whose might in fight was England's on her mightiest warrior
day,?South-west wind, whose breath for her was life, and fire to scourge
her foe,?Steel to smite and death to drive him down an unreturning way, Well-beloved and welcome, sounding all the clarions of the sky, Rolling all the marshalled waters toward the charge that storms
the shore,?We receive, acclaim, salute thee, we who live and dream and die, As the mightiest mouth of song that ever spake acclaimed of yore. We that live as they that perish praise thee, lord of cloud and
wave,?Wind of winds, clothed on with darkness whence as lightning light
comes forth,?We that know thee strong to