  The world is heated seven times, The sky is close above the lawn, An oven when the coals are drawn. There is no stir of air at all, Only at times an inward breeze Turns back a pale leaf in the trees. Here the syringa’s rich perfume Covers the tulip’s red retreat, A burning pool of scent and heat. The pallid lightning wavers dim Between the trees, then deep and dense The darkness settles more intense. A hawk lies panting in the grass, Or plunges upward through the air, The lightning shows him whirling there. A bird calls madly from the eaves. Then stops, the silence all at once Disturbed, falls dead again and stuns. A redder lightning flits about, But in the north a storm is rolled That splits the gloom with vivid gold; Dead silence, then a little sound, The distance chokes the thunder down, It shudders faintly in the town. A fountain plashing in the dark Keeps up a mimic dropping strain; Ah! God, if it were really rain! |
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