Page:A Voice from the Nile, and Other Poems. (Thomson, Dobell).djvu/79

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16
Richard Forest's Midsummer Night.

Let me pause for a moment and turn and look down
Beyond all the villa clumps duskily brown,
And beyond all the pale yellow lamps of the town;

To the sea and the noble bay
Lulled asleep in the broad moonshine;
To the shore where our youths and our maidens stray
On the sands and the pier's long line,
Like a swarm of bees that suspend their flight
To gather the honey of love and delight
In the heart of the azure-leaved Flower of the Night.

Like a swarm of buzzing bees
Whose busy murmurs float
On the wide-wafting wings of the southerly breeze,
Merged into one vague note:
They are drunk with the honey of love and of bliss,
And they throb with the stars of the azure abyss,
And the air is as soft as a tremulous kiss.

I shall find Her all alone
At the wicket of garden and lane,
Or out of the porch by the rose o'ergrown
She will glide all flushed and fain:
So gather your honey, you bees that swarm,
I drink-in my nectar all golden and warm
From a flower-cup the fairest in colour and form.