Poems (Scudder)/August Eve
AUGUST EVE
Somewhere, beyond the fields whose smoke-grey slopes are haunted By timid ghosts of spring; the wild carrots' lacy clusters Thick among the mistlike drift and swirl of the asters Lavender-petalled
Somewhere beyond the hill that rounds itself on the skyline With a curve as sweet as that of a dryad's shoulder, Farther—beyond the wood all black and mystic and silent, Somewhere, my dearest
Lies the lake we know, with its deep, moon-haunted waters, Never a dusk-winged moth to trouble the lucid shadows, Never a wind to start the lisping speech of the rushes Sleepless and eager.
Yet, since you are not here, my soul of spring and autumn, I shall not dare the soft, dark embrace of the wood-nymphs, Nor shall I seek the lake, but leave its lilies floating Still in the starlight.