[Pg 121]

[Pg 121]

ASTROPHEL

AFTER READING SIR PHILIP SIDNEY'S ARCADIA IN THE GARDEN OF AN OLD ENGLISH MANOR HOUSE

I

A star in the silence that follows

The song of the death of the sun

Speaks music in heaven, and the hollows

And heights of the world are as one;

One lyre that outsings and outlightens

The rapture of sunset, and thrills

Mute night till the sense of it brightens

The soul that it fills.

The flowers of the sun that is sunken

Hang heavy of heart as of head;

The bees that have eaten and drunken

The soul of their sweetness are fled;

But a sunflower of song, on whose honey

My spirit has fed as a bee,

Makes sunnier than morning was sunny

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