Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/1127

 THOMAS STURGE MOORE

Thick sediment. The humour of a day,

Which has defeated youth and health and joy,

Down, through a dreamless sleep, will settle thus,

Till riscth maiden gay,

Set free from all glooms past or else a boy

Once more a school-friend worthy Troilus.

Yet to such cool wood tank some dream might dip:

Vision of Aphrodite sunk to sleep,

Or of some sailor let down from a ship,

Young, dead, and lovely, while across the deep

Through the calm night his hoarse-voiced comrades chaunt

So far at sea, they cannot reach the land

To lay him perfect in the warm brown earth.

Pray that such dreams there haunt'

While, through damp darkness, where thy tun doth stand,

Cold salamanders sidle round its girth.

Gently draw off the clear and tomb it yet,

For other twenty days, in cedarn casks'

Where through trance, surely, prophecy will set;

As, dedicated to light temple-tasks,

The young priest dreams the unknown mystery.

Through Ariadne, knelt disconsolate

In the sea's marge, so welPd back warmth which throbb'd

With nuptial promise she

Turn'dj and, half-choked through dewy glens, some great,

Some magic drone of revel coming sobb'd.

Of glorious fruit, indeed, must be thy choice' Such as has fully ripen'd on the branch, Such as due rain, then sunshine, made rejoice, Which, pulp'd and coloured, now deep bloom doth blanch'

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