John Swinnerton Phillimore.

b.1873-1926

929   In a Meadow

       THIS is the place
Where far from the unholy populace
The daughter of Philosophy and Sleep
       Her court doth keep,
Sweet Contemplation. To her service bound
       Hover around
The little amiable summer airs,
       Her courtiers.

       The deep black soil
Makes mute her palace-floors with thick trefoil;
The grasses sagely nodding overhead
       Curtain her bed;
And lest the feet of strangers overpass
       Her walls of grass,
Gravely a little river goes his rounds
       To beat the bounds.

       —No bustling flood
To make a tumult in her neighbourhood,
But such a stream as knows to go and come
       Discreetly dumb.
Therein are chambers tapestried with weeds
       And screen’d with reeds;
For roof the waterlily-leaves serene
       Spread tiles of green.

       The sun’s large eye
Falls soberly upon me where I lie;
For delicate webs of immaterial haze
       Refine his rays.
The air is full of music none knows what,
       Or half-forgot;
The living echo of dead voices fills
       The unseen hills.

       I hear the song
Of cuckoo answering cuckoo all day long:
And know not if it be my inward sprite
       For my delight
Making remember’d poetry appear
       As sound in the ear:
Like a salt savour poignant in the breeze
       From distant seas.

       Dreams without sleep,
And sleep too clear for dreaming and too deep;
And Quiet very large and manifold
       About me roll’d;
Satiety, that momentary flower,
       Stretch’d to an hour:
These are her gifts which all mankind may use,
       And all refuse.