The sun holds all the earth and all the sky
From the gold throne of this midsummer day.
In the soft air the shadow of a sigh
Breathes on the leaves and scarcely makes them sway.
The wood lies silent in the shimmering heat,
Save where the insects make a lazy drone,
And ever and anon from some tree near,
A dove’s enamoured moan,
Or distant rook’s faint cawing harsh and sweet,
Comes dimly floating to my listening ear.
Right in the wood’s deep heart I lay me down,
And look up at the sky between the leaves,
Through delicate lace I see her deep blue gown.
Across a fern a scarlet spider weaves
From branch to branch a slender silver thread,
And hangs there shining in the white sunbeams,
A ruby tremulous on a streak of light.
And high above my head
One spray of honeysuckle sweats and dreams,
With one wild honey-bee for acolyte.
My nest is all untrod and virginal,
And virginal the path that led me here,
For all along the grass grew straight and tall,
And live things rustled in the thicket near:
And briar rose stretched out to sweet briar rose
Wild slender arms, and barred the way to me
With many a flowering arch, rose-pink or white,
As bending carefully.
Leaving unbroken all their blossoming bows,
I passed along, a reverent neophyte.
The air is full of soft imaginings,
They float unseen beneath the hot sunbeams,
Like tired moths on heavy velvet wings.
They droop above my drowsy head like dreams.
The hum of bees, the murmuring of doves.
The soft faint whispering of unnumbered trees.
Mingle with unreal things, and low and deep
From visionary groves,
Imagined lutes make voiceless harmonies.
And false flutes sigh before the gates of sleep.
O rare sweet hour! O cup of golden wine!
The night of these my days is dull and dense,
And stars are few, be this the anodyne!
Of many woes the perfect recompense.
I thought that I had lost for evermore
The sense of this ethereal drunkenness,
This fierce desire to live, to breathe, to be;
But even now, no less
Than in the merry noon that danced before
My tedious night, I taste its ecstasy.
Taste, and remember all the summer days
That lie, like golden reflections in the lake
Of vanished years, unreal but sweet always;
Soft luminous shadows that I may not take
Into my hands again, but still discern
Drifting like gilded ghosts before my eyes.
Beneath the waters of forgotten things.
Sweet with faint memories,
And mellow with old loves that used to burn
Dead summer days ago, like fierce red kings.
And this hour too must die, even now the sun
Droops to the sea, and with untroubled feet
The quiet evening comes: the day is done.
The air that throbbed beneath the passionate heat
Grows calm and cool and virginal again.
The colour fades and sinks to sombre tones.
As when in youthful cheeks a blush grows dim.
Hushed are the monotones
Of doves and bees, and the long flowery lane
Rustles beneath the wind in playful whim.
Gone are the passion and the pulse that beat
With fevered strokes, and gone the unseen things
That clothed the hour with shining raiment meet
To deck enchantments and imaginings.
No joy is here but only neutral peace
And loveless languor and indifference,
And faint remembrance of lost ecstasy.
The darkening shades increase.
My dreams go out like tapers—I must hence.
Far off I hear Night calling to the sea.
Lord Alfred Douglas (1870 – 1945) was an English poet and journalist.
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