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.

XXXIV

There was no kiss that day?
No intimate Yea-and-Nay,
No sweets in hand, no tender, lingering touch?
None of those desperate, exquisite caresses,
So instant--O, so brief!--and yet so much,
The thought of the swiftest lifts and blesses?
Nor any one of those great royal words,
Those sovran privacies of speech,
Frank as the call of April birds,
That, whispered, live a life of gold
Among the heart's still sainted memories,
And irk, and thrill, and ravish, and beseech,
Even when the dream of dreams in death's a-cold?
No, there was none of these,
Dear one, and yet--
O, eyes on eyes! O, voices breaking still,
For all the watchful will,
Into a kinder kindness than seemed due
From you to me, and me to you!
And that hot-eyed, close-throated, blind regret
Of woman and man baulked and debarred the blue!--
No kiss--no kiss that day?
Nay, rather, though we seemed to wear the rue,
Sweet friend, how many, and how goodly--say!

XXXV

Sing to me, sing, and sing again,
My glad, great-throated nightingale:
Sing, as the good sun through the rain--
Sing, as the home-wind in the sail!

Sing to me life, and toil, and time,
O bugle of dawn, O flute of rest!
Sing, and once more, as in the prime,
There shall be naught but seems the best.

And sing me at the last of love:
Sing that old magic of the May,
That makes the great world laugh and move
As lightly as our dream to-day!

XXXVI

_We sat late_, _late_--_talking of many things_.
_He told me of his grief_, _and_, _in the telling_,
_The gist of his tale showed to me_, _rhymed_, _like this_.

It came, the news, like a fire in the night,
That life and its best were done;
And there was never so dazed a wretch
In the beat of the living sun.

I read the news, and the terms of the news
Reeled random round my brain
Like the senseless, tedious buzzle and boom
Of a bluefly in the pane.