Donal Grant

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II.

I
stood in the summer morning
Under a cavernous yew;

The sun was gently climbing,

And the scents rose after the dew.

I
saw the wise old mansion,
Like a cow in the noonday-heat,

Stand in a pool of shadows

That rippled about its feet.

Its windows were oriel and latticed,

Lowly and wide and fair;

And its chimneys like clustered pillars

Stood up in the thin blue air.

White doves, like the thoughts of a lady,

Haunted it in and out;

With a train of green and blue comets,

The peacock went marching about.

The birds in the trees were singing

A song as old as the world,

Of love and green leaves and sunshine,

And winter folded and furled.

They sang that never was sadness

But it melted and passed away;

They sang that never was darkness

But in came the conquering day.

And I knew that a maiden somewhere,

In a sober sunlit gloom,

In a nimbus of shining garments,

An aureole of white-browed bloom,

Looked out on the garden dreamy,

And knew not that it was old;

Looked past the gray and the sombre,

And saw but the green and the gold.


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