No eve of summer ever can attain
The gladness of that eve of late _July_,
When 'mid the roses, filled with musk and rain,
Against the wondrous topaz of the sky,
I met you, leaning on the pasture bars,--
While heaven and earth grew conscious of the stars.
No night of blackest winter can repeat
The bitterness of that _December_ night,
When at your gate, gray-glittering with sleet,
Within the glimmering square of window-light,
We parted,--long you clung unto my arm,--
While heaven and earth surrendered to the storm.
IN _June_.
Deep in the West a berry-coloured bar
Of sunset gleams; against which one tall fir
Is outlined dark; above which--courier
Of dew and dreams--burns dusk's appointed star.
And flash on flash, as when the elves wage war
In Goblinland, the fireflies bombard
The stillness; and, like spirits, o'er the sward
The glimmering winds bring fragrance from afar.
And now withdrawn into the hill-wood belts
A whippoorwill; while, with attendant states
Of purple and silver, slow the great moon melts
Into the night--to show me where _she_ waits,--
Like some slim moonbeam,--by the old beech-tree,
Who keeps her lips, fresh as a flower, for me.