They, and the mist of stars Down-spread About him as a hush of vespering birds. They, and the sun, the moon: Naught now denies him the moon's coming, Nor the morning trail of gold, The luminous print of evening, red At the sun's tread.
The brown earth holds him. The stars and little winds, the friendly moon And sun attend in turn his rest. They linger above him, softly moving. They are gracious, And gently-wise: as though remembering how his hunger, His kinship, knew them once but blindly In thoughts unsaid, As a dream that fled.
So is he theirs assuredly as the seasons. So is his sleep by them for ever companioned. ...And, perchance, by the voices of bright children playing And knowing not: by the echo of young laughter When their dancing is sped.
This cool quiet of trees In the grey dusk of the north, In the green half-dusk of the west, Where fires still glow; These glimmering fantasies Of foliage branching forth And drooping into rest; Ye lovers, know That in your wanderings Beneath this arching brake Ye must attune your love To hushed words. For here is the dreaming wisdom of The unmovable things... And more:--walk softly, lest ye wake A thousand sleeping birds.
He lay, and those who watched him were amazed To see unheralded beneath the lids Twin tears, new-gathered at the price of pain, Start and at once run crookedly athwart Cheeks channelled long by pain, never by tears. So desolate too the sigh next uttered They had wept also, but his great lips moved, And bending down one heard, 'A sprig of lime; Bring me a sprig of lime.' Whereat she stole With dumb signs forth to pluck the thing he craved.
So lay he till a lime-twig had been snapped From some still branch that swept the outer grass Far from the silver pillar of the bole Which mounting past the house's crusted roof Split into massy limbs, crossed boughs, a maze Of close-compacted intercontorted staffs Bowered in foliage wherethrough the sun Shot sudden showers of light or crystal spars Or wavered in a green and vitreous flood. And all the while in faint and fainter tones Scarce audible on deepened evening's hush He framed his curious and last request For 'lime, a sprig of lime.' Her trembling hand Closed his loose fingers on the awkward stem Covered above with gentle heart-shaped leaves And under dangling, pale as honey-wax, Square clusters of sweet-scented starry flowers.