Page:A midsummer holiday and other poems (IA midsummerholiday00swin).pdf/70

 The highways paced of men that toil or play, The byways known of none but lonely feet, Were paven of purple woven of night and day With hands that met as hands of friends might meet— As though night's were not lifted up to slay And day's had waxed not weaker. Peace more sweet Than music, light more soft than shadow, lay On downs and moorlands wan with day's defeat, That watched afar above Life's very rose of love Let all its lustrous leaves fall, fade, and fleet, And fill all heaven and earth Full as with fires of birth Whence time should feed his years with light and heat: Nay, not life's, but a flower more strong Than life or time or death, love's very rose of song.