Summer Past

To Oscar Wilde



There was the summer. There 
     Warm hours of leaf-lipped song, 
     And dripping amber sweat. 
     O sweet to see 
The great trees condescend to cast a pearl 
Down to the myrtles; and the proud leaves curl 
     In ecstasy 

Fruit of a quest, despair. 
Smart of a sullen wrong. 
Where may they hide them yet? 
     One hour, yet one, 
To find the mossgod lurking in his nest, 
To see the naiads' floating hair, caressed 
     By fragrant sun- 

Beams. Softly lulled the eves 
The song-tired birds to sleep, 
That other things might tell 
     Their secrecies. 
The beetle humming neath the fallen leaves 
Deep in what hollow do the stern gods keep 
Their bitter silence? By what listening well 
     Where holy trees, 

Song-set, unfurl eternally the sheen 
     Of restless green?