A COUNTRY NIGHT PIECE.
The darkness my footsteps were swathed in
Is drenched with a luminous spray;
For a chain's length the kerbstone is bathed in
A spindrift of silvery grey;
By the roadside is mistily glimmering
A wall phosphorescent with pearls,
All glancing and dancing and shimmering
Like star-dust that swirls.
Where the high-road dips down to the dingle,
A coppice in arabesque gleams
Whose traceries melt and commingle,
Like ghost trees in moon-fretted streams,
As the tremulous glamour sweeps o'er it
And skirts the inscrutable sky;
Then, Fairyland flitting before it,
The car flashes by.