Fancies at Leisure

I. Noon Rest

  Following the river’s course,
    We come to where the sedges plant
  Their thickest twinings at its source;—­
    A spot that makes the heart to pant,
  Feeling its rest and beauty.  Pull
  The reeds’ tops thro’ your fingers; dull
  Your sense of the world’s life; and toss
  The thought away of hap or cross: 
  Then shall the river seem to call
  Your name, and the slow quiet crawl
  Between your eyelids like a swoon;
  And all the sounds at heat of noon
  And all the silence shall so sing
  Your eyes asleep as that no wing
  Of bird in rustling by, no prone
  Willow-branch on your hair, no drone
  Droning about and past you,—­nought
  May soon avail to rouse you, caught
  With sleep thro’ heat in the sun’s light,—­
  So good, tho’ losing sound and sight,
  You scarce would waken, if you might.

II.  A Quiet Place

  My friend, are not the grasses here as tall
  As you would wish to see?  The runnell’s fall
  Over the rise of pebbles, and its blink
  Of shining points which, upon this side, sink
  In dark, yet still are there; this ragged crane
  Spreading his wings at seeing us with vain
  Terror, forsooth; the trees, a pulpy stock
  Of toadstools huddled round them; and the flock—­
  Black wings after black wings—­of ancient rook
  By rook; has not the whole scene got a look
  As though we were the first whose breath should fan
  In two this spider’s web, to give a span
  Of life more to three flies?  See, there’s a stone
  Seems made for us to sit on.  Have men gone
  By here, and passed? or rested on that bank
  Or on this stone, yet seen no cause to thank
  For the grass growing here so green and rank?

III.  A Fall of Rain

  It was at day-break my thought said: 
  “The moon makes chequered chestnut-shade
  There by the south-side where the vine
  Grapples the wall; and if it shine
  This evening thro’ the boughs and leaves,
  And if the wind with silence weaves
  More silence than itself, each stalk
  Of flower just swayed by it, we’ll walk,
  Mary and I, when every fowl
  Hides beak and eyes in breast, the owl
  Only awake to hoot.”—­But clover
  Is beaten down now, and birds hover,
  Peering for shelter round; no blade
  Of grass stands sharp and tall; men wade
  Thro’ mire with frequent plashing sting
  Of rain upon their faces.  Sing,
  Then, Mary, to me thro’ the dark: 
  But kiss me first:  my hand shall mark
  Time, pressing yours the while I hark.

IV.  Sheer Waste

  Is it a little thing to lie down here
    Beside the water, looking into it,
    And see there grass and fallen leaves interknit,
    And small fish sometimes passing thro’ some bit
  Of tangled grass where there’s an outlet clear?