Down Here the Hawthorn Poems

rk. The lingering air from the far noonhour quickens Once more to life, to ghostly life, and soon Into the void of sightless, different noon, The midnight's noon, shall be outspilled Its fragrance finally and uttermost Of flower and leaf distilled Which too must soon be ghost. Now slowly comes the time of phantom-trove. Colour and shape and scent To the last trace have mixed and spent; Even the lightening lilies are at one With all that was separate in the sun. Over the night's black full noon move Weird spells of nothingness, of unreality, A DUSK Among the flowers and where the quieted thrush Thrilled once in tree after each vanished tree, Over the blossom-beds and in the braCmbled bush, On everything, even memory. 0 I have lingered long enough ! . . . Myself nigh phantom-grown, I come Down the lost garden path to home. Across the sanded threshold flags My muffled passage through new land unknown Of kitchen shadow drags. Eerily alone Looms the pale face half-shown Of a ghostly clock long past the longest chime. Here is the pantry, here the huddled stair, Naught to my seeming actual anywhere, Each sound gone whisperless, unechoing. . . But now those phantom lowlands slip away. 1 reach the end of stumbling climb In chamber's twilight silver-pointed by A candle's shine. Quietly I tread to where you, sleeping, lie. . . . To you, the one unshadowy thin... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.