SUNSET NEAR AN OLD CHATEAU
Close-leaved quince and apple-tree
Cluster in the long-dry moat
While a milky sky above
Curves and shimmers daintily
As the white wood-pigeon's throat;
Strikes the west a bolder note,
Golden rose of Dijon's love,
Poppy-gold or apricote.
Cluster in the long-dry moat
While a milky sky above
Curves and shimmers daintily
As the white wood-pigeon's throat;
Strikes the west a bolder note,
Golden rose of Dijon's love,
Poppy-gold or apricote.
From the lindens torchlike burning
Heart-shaped flakes of gold afloat
Down the breeze are drifting, turning.
—Heart of gold, oh, heart of gold—
Where to find you? For, behold,
Underneath the branches low
Fairy realms unchanged, remote,
Green as chrysoberyl glow.
Green of hazel, green of brake,
Green of changeling poplars souled
By the argent sprites of lake
Or of ocean. Heart of gold,
I shall never find you there
In the fern-choked paths, or where
Lies the little white chateau
Just beyond the forest brink
Like a shell to mark the flow
Of the upper tides and show
Faint, quick pulses of the sea
Throbbing mauve and golden pink
Through its veinless purity.
Heart-shaped flakes of gold afloat
Down the breeze are drifting, turning.
—Heart of gold, oh, heart of gold—
Where to find you? For, behold,
Underneath the branches low
Fairy realms unchanged, remote,
Green as chrysoberyl glow.
Green of hazel, green of brake,
Green of changeling poplars souled
By the argent sprites of lake
Or of ocean. Heart of gold,
I shall never find you there
In the fern-choked paths, or where
Lies the little white chateau
Just beyond the forest brink
Like a shell to mark the flow
Of the upper tides and show
Faint, quick pulses of the sea
Throbbing mauve and golden pink
Through its veinless purity.
See the great sunflowers stooping
By the sheer moat edge and drooping
Each the massive chevelure
Of her tawny yellow hair,
Lithe and proud and fiercely fair,
Nymph or dryad—who could say
Which hath stranger, wilder lure
On this verge of night and day?
By the sheer moat edge and drooping
Each the massive chevelure
Of her tawny yellow hair,
Lithe and proud and fiercely fair,
Nymph or dryad—who could say
Which hath stranger, wilder lure
On this verge of night and day?
Now, a flight of swallows whirls
Past the grey-walled chapel; swirls
Swift as eddied soot-flakes through
That low arch whose stones are wound
With clematis heat-embrowned.
Gold heart of the twilight, you
Are too nearly spent, and I
Grieve to see against the blue
Of the darkling middle sky
Moon of gossamer that shows
Neither crescent nor full round,
Kingcup nay, nor golden rose—
But as mid the thickly growing
Purple harebells breezeward blowing
One of phantom white is found.
Past the grey-walled chapel; swirls
Swift as eddied soot-flakes through
That low arch whose stones are wound
With clematis heat-embrowned.
Gold heart of the twilight, you
Are too nearly spent, and I
Grieve to see against the blue
Of the darkling middle sky
Moon of gossamer that shows
Neither crescent nor full round,
Kingcup nay, nor golden rose—
But as mid the thickly growing
Purple harebells breezeward blowing
One of phantom white is found.