Afternoon

<SPAN name="XXVIII"></SPAN>XXVIII<br/> <br/> <br/> <span style="margin-left: 1em;">The moveless beauty</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 1em;">Of the summer evenings,</span><br/> Upon the grass where they deploy,<br/> <span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gives with symbolic offerings,</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 1em;">Gestureless, without a word,</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 1em;">The deep repose of joy.</span><br/> <br/> <span style="margin-left: 1em;">Morning with its surprises</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 1em;">Has gone where no wind rises;</span><br/> Midday itself with folds of velvet air<br/> No longer sinks upon the torpid plain;<br/> Now is the hour when the evening once again<br/> Without a moving leaf or ripple on lake breast,<br/> <span style="margin-left: 5em;">Comes down from lofty hills</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 6em;">To our garden where</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 6em;">It seeks its rest.</span><br/> <br/> Oh golden splendour of the burnished lake,<br/> And trees and shadows of them on the reeds,<br/> <span style="margin-left: 1em;">And tranquil sumptuous silences</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 6em;">That take</span><br/> Immutably the kingdom of our hearts,<br/> So that within us now a vow we cherish<br/> Of it to live and die and live again,<br/> Like two hearts drunk almost to pain<br/> <span style="margin-left: 5em;">With light,</span><br/> <span style="margin-left: 5em;">Who cannot perish!</span><br/> <br/> <br/> <br/> <br/> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />