The prime of summer is coming, and with it there comes, to-day,
A thought of another summer, whose garlands have faded away:
Yes, death is at the bottom of the cup,
And every one that lives must drink it up;
A son was born to a poor peasant.
A foul old woman stepped inside
DRINK of our Cup--of the red wine that burns in it,
All the wild shames that have crusted its mouth,
The hounds of despair, the hounds of the autumnal wind,
Gnaw with their howling the black echoes of evenings.
Exiled afar from youth and happy love,
If Death should ravish my fond spirit hence
Now, see! the time is come when solemnly and slow
The flowers on their stem like shaken censers fume;
COME hither, Evan Cameron!
Come, stand beside my knee:
STR. 1
I laid my laurel-leaf
REEDS, snake-like, coiled in the mist
Where the low fog drives:
All Hallows Eve — when ghosts do walk the earth:
All Hallows Eve — O light and fireside mirth!
Put in the sickles and reap;
For the morning of harvest is red,
O YE, who rode the gales of Sicily,
Sandalled with flame,
Expecting Him, my door was open wide:
Then I looked round
This is the bricklayer; hear the thud
Of his heavy load dumped down on stone.
All in the wild and windy night
I heard the treetops moan,
Methought a great wind swept across the earth,
And all the toilers perished. Then I saw
Sun of autumn, thin and shy
And fruit drops off the trees,
All your sylvan prophecies
But a phantom sigh!
Prepare, prepare, new Guests draw near
And on the brink of Hell appear.
A moon, with vacant, chilling eye, stares
At the winter, enthroned vast and white upon the hard ground;
O'er the wide heath now moon-tide horrors hung,
And night's dark pencil dim'd the tints of spring;
Fire and wild light of hope and doubt and fear,
Wind of swift change, and clouds and hours that veer
On couches filled with odors faint and failing,
Divans profound as tombs, we shall recline;
BRING out your dead before you reap
From lips beloved infection dread;
A burning glass of burnished brass,
The calm sea caught the noontide rays,
Sculptor of demons and of goddesses,
I chisel also an eidolon of love
We every Day grew dearer to each other. I was then
indeed as blind as he. I gave him every Perfection, and
Now as the twilight's doubtful interval
Closes with night's accomplished certainty,
Thou whose birth on earth
Angels sang to men,
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