What is there left, sweet Soul and true—
What, for us and our dream to do?
What but to take this mighty Summer
As it were made for me and you?
Take it and live it beam by beam,
Motes of light on a gleaming stream,
Glare by glare and glory on glory
Through to the ash of this flaming dream!
XXXII
The downs, like uplands in Eden,
Gleam in an afterglow
Like a rose-world ruining earthwards—
Mystical, wistful, slow!
Near and afar in the leafage,
That last glad call to the nest!
And the thought of you hangs and triumphs
With Hesper low in the west!
Till the song and the light and the colour,
The passion of earth and sky,
Are blent in a rapture of boding
Of the death we should one day die.
XXXIII
The time of the silence
Of birds is upon us:
Rust in the chestnut leaf,
Dust in the stubble:
The turn of the Year
And the call to decay.
Stately and splendid,
The Summer passes:
Sad with satiety,
Sick with fulfilment;
Spent and consumed,
But august till the end.
By wilting hedgerows
And white-hot highways,
Bearing its memories
Even as a burden,
The tired heart plods
For a place of rest.