1. A MOOD.
Faint with the heat, a murmur on the calm branches falls,
Motionless hanging, while in grievous intervals
The forest breathed, oppressed; sap in a bitter tide
From the burst herbage let crude-savoured fragrance glide.
'Neath the unmoving trees pale faintness sought a place,
Sat by my side and breathed forebodings in my face,
Grief of the ceaseless question in my eyea immersed,
And with my soul in speech of lifeless words conversed.
‘The sun's o'erripened bloom quivered in glows of white,
Quailed in the dusk of boughs and 'mid blue leaves took flight
With listless calm's mute wane of strength; in mosses hid
It smouldered, lulling me in weariness amid
A bath of mystic breath, as though 'neath waves I lay,
And from my opened veins blood softly oozed away.
"The Mystic Distances" (1897)
