Chapter XXIX

This fair garden flowering to flame,
That seems the wondrous beauty to proclaim
Of that clear garden whereunto we cleave,
Is crystallised in frosted gold this eve.
A great white silence drops athwart the sky,
Out there where gleams a marble hue,
Whither, one by one, the tall trees stride,
Each with its shadow, long and blue
And lonely, by its side.
No stir of wind; but soundlessly
The blanched veils of cold alone
Unfold themselves mysteriously
On the marshes' silver or the roads' white stone.
The stars are lustrous with desire;
Like furbished steel the rime
Within the cold, translucid air.
From some infinity sublime,
Across the paleness of a waning moon,
Falls shower on shower of fire--
Star-dust that there
Sinks in a scintillating swoon.
It is the hour divine, when wistfully
A million eyes look down upon the earth--
Upon the hazards of our human birth--
From out immutable eternity.