What else than a touch of genius is in those three words, “paved with afternoon,” as fixing the tempered light, the drowsy calm, of the place?
The Octaves are written in groups, the poems of each having a slight dependence upon one another, so that to be quoted they require the connecting thought. In many cases also the first or the second quatrain of the Octave is more artistic than its companion lines, as in
the one which follows, where the first four lines hold the creative beauty:
As here among the well-remembering boughs,
Where every leaf is tongue to ancient breath,
Speech of the yesteryears forgathereth,
And all the winds are long-fulfilléd vows—
So from of old those ringing names arouse
A whispering in the foliate shades of death,
Where History her golden rosary saith,