The sun is half a hand above the lake
In a sky of lemon-dust down to the purple vastness.
On the dizzy crest of the bluff the balls of clover
Bow in the warm wind blowing across a meadow
Where hay-cocks stand new-piled by the harvesters
Clear to the forest of pine and beech at the meadow's end.
A robin on the tip of a poplar's spire
Sings to the sinking sun and the evening planet.
Over the olive green of the darkening forest
A thin moon slits the sky and down the road
Two lovers walk.
It is night when they reappear
From the forest, walking the hay-field over.
And the sky is so full of stars it seems
Like a field of buckwheat. And the lovers look up,
Then stand entranced under the silence of stars,
And in the silence of the scented hay-field
Blurred only by a lisp of the listless water
A hundred feet below.
And at last they sit by a cock of hay,
As warm as the nest of a bird,
Hand clasped in hand and silent,
Large-eyed and silent.
* * * * *
O, daughter Flora!
Delicious weakness is on you now,
With your lover's face above you.
You can scarcely lift your hand,
Or turn your head
Pillowed upon the fragrant hay.
You dare not open your moistened eyes
For fear of this sky of stars,
For fear of your lover's eyes.
The trance of nature has taken you
Rocked on creation's tide.
And the kinship you feel for this man,
Confessed this night--so often confessed
And wondered at--
Has coiled its final sorcery about you.
You do not know what it is,
Nor care what it is,
Nor care what fate is to come,--
The night has you.
You only move white, fainting hands
Against his strength, then let them fall.
Your lips are parted over set teeth;
A dewy moisture with the aroma of a woman's body
Maddens your lover,
And in a swift and terrible moment
The mystery of love is unveiled to you. ...
Then your lover sits up with a sigh.
But you lie there so still with closed eyes.
So content, scarcely breathing under that ocean of stars.
A night bird calls, and a vagrant zephyr
Stirs your uncoiled hair on your bare bosom,
But you do not move.
And the sun comes up at last
Finding you asleep in his arms,
There by the hay cock.
And he kisses your tears away,
And redeems his word of last night,
For down to the village you go
And take your vows before the Pastor there,
And then return to the summer house. ...
All is well.