Page:A Voice from the Nile, and Other Poems. (Thomson, Dobell).djvu/78

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Richard Forest's Midsummer Night.
15

Or through green leaves and apples bright
And hoary stems a-slanting low,
When morning crowns the eastern height;
The blue smoke quivering up the air
Its slender breath of household prayer;

The sweet flowers flush and glow and yearn,
With wild bees humming in their bloom,
The lane comes winding like a burn
Through banks of golden gorse and broom,
And edged with grass and fringed with fern;
The rapturous larks are singing high
In all the regions of the sky.

But that is day, these days of June
A-verging into hot July,
And this is night, more rich and boon,
Although its hours so swiftly fly:
O light of lovers, gracious moon,
My own Moon waits me full of love,
Brighter than all heaven's stars above.

V.
Ere the road curves up through the shade
With its transverse moonlight bars,
While above in the leafy gloom of the glade
Hang the glittering fruits of the stars;