AUBADE. (2)

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THE lights are out in the street, and a cool wind swings
Loose poplar plumes on the sky;
Deep in the gloom of the garden the first bird sings:
Curt, hurried steps go by,
Loud in the hush of the dawn past the linden screen,
Lost in a jar and a rattle of wheels unseen,
Beyond on the wide highway:
Night lingers dusky and dim in the pear-tree boughs,
Hangs in the hollows of leaves, though the thrushes rouse,
And the glimmering lawn grows gray.
Yours, my heart knoweth, yours only the jewelled gloom,
Splendours of opal and amber, the scent, the bloom,
Yours all, and your own demesne—
Scent of the dark, of the dawning, of leaves and dew;
Nothing that was but hath changed—’tis a world made new—
A lost world risen again.
The lamps are out in the street, and the air grows bright;
Come, lest the miracle fade in the broad, bare light,
The new world wither away:
Clear is your voice in my heart, and you call me—whence?
Come—for I listen, I wait,—bid me rise, go hence,
Or ever the dawn turn day.

Graham R. Tomson.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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