THE FLUTE

It was a night of smell and dew

When very old things seemed how new;

When speech was softest in the still

Air that loitered down the hill;

When the lime's sweetness could but creep

Like music to slow ears of sleep;

When far below the lapping sea

Lisped but of tired tranquillity....

No,‘ twas a night that seemed almost

Of real night the little ghost,

As though a painter painted it

Out of the shallows of his wit —

The easy air, the whispered trees,

Faint prattle of strait distant seas,

Pettiness all: but hark, hark!

Large and rich in the narrow dark

Music rose. Was music never

Braver in her pure endeavour

Against the meanness of the world.

Her purple banner she unfurled

Of stars and suns upon the night

Amazed with the strange living light.

The notes rose where the dark trees knelt;

Their fiery joy made stillness melt

As flame in woods the low boughs burns,

Sere leaves, dry bushes, flame-shaped ferns.

The notes rose as great birds that rise

Majestically in lofty skies,

And in white clouds are lost; and then

Briefly they hushed, and woke again

Renewed.

Slowly silence came

As smoke after sinking flame

That spreads and thins across the sky

When day pales before it die.