NIGHT OF FROST IN MAY

With splendour of a silver day,

A frosted night had opened May:

And on that plumed and armoured night,

As one close temple hove our wood,

Its border leafage virgin white.

Remote down air an owl hallooed.

The black twig dropped without a twirl;

The bud in jewelled grasp was nipped;

The brown leaf cracked a scorching curl;

A crystal off the green leaf slipped.

Across the tracks of rimy tan,

Some busy thread at whiles would shoot;

A limping minnow-rillet ran,

To hang upon an icy foot.

In this shrill hush of quietude,

The ear conceived a severing cry.

Almost it let the sound elude,

When chuckles three, a warble shy,

From hazels of the garden came,

Near by the crimson-windowed farm.

They laid the trance on breath and frame,

A prelude of the passion-charm.

Then soon was heard, not sooner heard

Than answered, doubled, trebled, more,

Voice of an Eden in the bird

Renewing with his pipe of four

The sob: a troubled Eden, rich

In throb of heart: unnumbered throats

Flung upward at a fountain's pitch,

The fervour of the four long notes,

That on the fountain's pool subside,

Exult and ruffle and upspring:

Endless the crossing multiplied

Of silver and of golden string.

There chimed a bubbled underbrew

With witch-wild spray of vocal dew.

It seemed a single harper swept

Our wild wood's inner chords and waked

A spirit that for yearning ached

Ere men desired and joyed or wept.

Or now a legion ravishing

Musician rivals did unite

In love of sweetness high to sing

The subtle song that rivals light;

From breast of earth to breast of sky:

And they were secret, they were nigh:

A hand the magic might disperse;

The magic swung my universe.

Yet sharpened breath forbade to dream,

Where all was visionary gleam;

Where Seasons, as with cymbals, clashed;

And feelings, passing joy and woe,

Churned, gurgled, spouted, interflashed,

Nor either was the one we know:

Nor pregnant of the heart contained

In us were they, that griefless plained,

That plaining soared; and through the heart

Struck to one note the wide apart: -

A passion surgent from despair;

A paining bliss in fervid cold;

Off the last vital edge of air,

Leap heavenward of the lofty-souled,

For rapture of a wine of tears;

As had a star among the spheres

Caught up our earth to some mid-height

Of double life to ear and sight,

She giving voice to thought that shines

Keen-brilliant of her deepest mines;

While steely drips the rillet clinked,

And hoar with crust the cowslip swelled.

Then was the lyre of earth beheld,

Then heard by me: it holds me linked;

Across the years to dead-ebb shores

I stand on, my blood-thrill restores.

But would I conjure into me

Those issue notes, I must review

What serious breath the woodland drew;

The low throb of expectancy;

How the white mother-muteness pressed

On leaf and meadow-herb; how shook,

Nigh speech of mouth, the sparkle-crest

Seen spinning on the bracken-crook.