Afternoon

<SPAN name="XVI"></SPAN>XVI<br/> <br/> <br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">All that lives about us here,</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">Beneath a radiance soft and clear,</span><br/> Soft grasses, tender branches, hollyhocks,<br/> The shade that soothes them, the wind that mocks,<br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">The singing birds that one by one</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">Join the brilliant swarm,</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">Like jewel-clusters, warm</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 4em;">With sun;</span><br/> All that lives within the garden wall,<br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">Love us ingenuously;</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 4.5em;">And we,</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">We love them all.</span><br/> <br/> Dear to us the lilies that grow high;<br/> The reaching sunflowers clearer than the sky<br/> &mdash;Circles that bright lambent tongues enroll&mdash;<br/> Burn, with their glowing fervency, our soul.<br/> <br/> The simple flowers, phlox and lilac tall,<br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">Down by the wall,</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">Are yearning to be near us too,</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">And the involuntary grass,</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">On the lawn when we pass,</span><br/> Opens its moistened eyes that are the dew.<br/> <br/> <span style="margin-left: 1em;">We live with the flowers and the grass,</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 1em;">Simple, pure and ardent still,</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">Lost in our love,</span><br/> Like single sheaves within the infinite wheat,<br/> And proudly let imperial summer pass<br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">And from above</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sweep and pierce with clarity</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 2em;">Body, heart and will.</span><br/> <br/> <br/> <br/> <br/> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />