Ambergris

AMBERGRIS 125 Save some low sigh caught up where pulses beat Of warm love waiting in the arboreal seat Till the shade lengthen on the lawn light-gleaming. Now all the birds change tune, and all the light Glows lowlier, musing on departed day. Strange wings and sombre, heralding the night, Fleet far across the woods ; and gleaming bright The evening star looks from the orient way. Shadow and silence deepen : all the woods Take on a tenderer phrase of musical Breezes : the stream-sought homes and solitudes Murmur a little where the maiden moods Are sadder as the evening’s kisses fall. Like silver scales of serpenthood they fall Across the blind air of the evening ; Shadowy ghosts arise funereal And seek unspeakable things ; and dryads call The Satyr-company to the satyr-king. And all the light is over ; but the sky Shudders with blanched light of the unrisen moon. The night-birds mingle their sad minstrelsy For daylight’s requiem : and the sea’s reply Now stirs across the land’s departed tune. The moon is up : the choral crowd of stars, Shapen like strange or unknown animals, Move in their measure : beyond fiolian bars The clustering winds, moving as nenuphars, Gather and muse before the midnight calls. The darkness is most deep in hollow dells. There, blacker than Cocytus, lurk the shades Darker than death’s, more terrible than hell’s, Uttering unwritten words : the silent wells Keep their sweet secret till the morning maids