the summer light

from THE LOTOS-EATERS

There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown
roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still
waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes;
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.

Here are cool mosses deep,
And thro' the moss
the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.

...

Lo! in the middle of
the wood,
The folded leaf is woo'd from out
the bud
With winds upon the branch,
and there

Grows green and broad,
and takes no care,
Sun-steep'd at noon,
and in the moon
Nightly dew-fed;
and turning yellow
Falls, and floats adown the air.

Lo! sweeten'd
with the summer light,
The full-juiced apple,
waxing over-mellow,
Drops in a silent autumn night.
All its allotted length of days

The flower ripens in its place,
Ripens and fades, and falls,
and hath no toil,
Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.

...
How sweet it were,
hearing the downward stream,
With half-shut eyes ever to seem
Falling asleep in a half-dream!

To dream and dream,
like yonder amber light,
Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height;
To hear each other's
whisper'd speech;
Eating the Lotos day by day,
To watch the crisping ripples
on the beach,
And tender curving lines of creamy spray;

To lend our hearts
and spirits wholly
To the influence of
mild-minded melancholy;
To muse and brood
and live again in memory,
With those old faces
of our infancy
Heap'd over with
a mound of grass,
Two handfuls of white dust,
shut in an urn of brass!

Alfred, Lord Tennyson