Part 2

What matter for their fullest flower October days or April bright? They have but simple wish to drink, Even the sanguine, light;

On sombre days, when under clouds Haggardly the heavens hide, They will, for one lone ray of sun, Exalt at Christmastide.

You, oh spirits, live like them! They have not pride that lilies feel, But hold within their folds a sacred And immortal zeal.

XXVII

Fervency of sense, of heart, of soul-- Vain words created to despoil love's powers; Sun, you distinguish not between your flames Of all your evening, dawn, or midday hours.

You move all blinded by your proper light Through blazing space, beneath the arched sky, Knowing alone that your great, ample power Works at things mysterious and high.

For love means exaltation's ceaseless deeds; Oh you whose sweetness sweetens my proud heart, What need to weigh the pure gold of our dream? I love you wholly, with my every part.

XXVIII

The moveless beauty Of the summer evenings, Upon the grass where they deploy, Gives with symbolic offerings, Gestureless, without a word, The deep repose of joy.

Morning with its surprises Has gone where no wind rises; Midday itself with folds of velvet air No longer sinks upon the torpid plain; Now is the hour when the evening once again Without a moving leaf or ripple on lake breast, Comes down from lofty hills To our garden where It seeks its rest.

Oh golden splendour of the burnished lake, And trees and shadows of them on the reeds, And tranquil sumptuous silences That take Immutably the kingdom of our hearts, So that within us now a vow we cherish Of it to live and die and live again, Like two hearts drunk almost to pain With light, Who cannot perish!

XXIX

You spoke that evening words so beautiful That even the flowers, leaning on the breeze, Suddenly loved us so that one of them, To touch us both, fell down upon our knees.

You spoke of the near time when our two lives, Like too-ripe fruits, would be upgathered, And how the tocsin of our fate would knell, And love be with us still, though youth had fled.

Your voice was round me like a close embrace, Your burning heart so quiet and so brave, I would have seen unfold without a fear The winding road that leads toward the grave.

XXX

"Sun-lit Hours," "Hours of Afternoon," Hours superbly now a part of us! Your measured pace lights up our garden paths, Our golden roses kiss you as in pain; Summer's dying; autumn comes now soon.

Hours of fragrant flowering, will you come again?

And yet if Fate, that holds the stars in leash, Spare us its evil and its bitter chance, Perhaps you shall weave some day before my eyes The measured footfalls of your radiant dance; And I shall add then to your ardent showers Of shade and sunlight on the grassy slope --Like a supreme, immense and sovereign hope-- The steps and farewells of my "Twilight Hours."