Of perfect summer’s full life’s noon-day glow,
With undimmed sunshine, earth illumining.
Thy stars, wan hazel, break amid the blaze
Of gold and scarlet wherewith burn the hills—
As when the pomp of royal burial fills
The clouded skies that mourn the dying days.
The gold grows spent, ashen the scarlet fires,
The night too near for any song of bird;
‘Mid voice of streams and rustling leaves, foot-stirred,
The grieving summer’s last earth-prayer expires.