Their warm involving
deep —
Love,
sleep !—
And lover lies with lover
On air's substantial steep.
Tannhauser.
Ah ! sweeter was September —
The amber rain of leaves,
The harvest to remember,
The load of sunny sheaves.
In gardens deeply scented,
In orchards heavily hung,
Love flung
Away the days demented
With lips that curled and clung.
Ah ! Sweeter still October,
When russet leaves go grey,
And sombre loves and sober
Make twilight of the day.
Dark dreams and shadows tenser
Throb through
the vital scroll,
Man's
soul.
Lift, shake the subtle censer
That hides the cruel coal
!
36