free-verse56 lines
The Idyll.
by Edward ShanksThis is the valley where we sojourn now,
Cut up by narrow brooks and rich and green
And shaded sweetly by the waving bough
About the trench where floats the soft serene
Arun with waters running low and low
Through banks where lately still the tide has been;
Here is our resting-place, you walk with me
And watch the light die out in Amberley.
The light that dies is soft and flooding still,
Shed from the broad expanse of all the skies
And brimming up the space from hill to hill,
Where yet the sheep in their sweet exercise,
Roaming the meadows, crop and find their fill
And to each other speak with moaning cries;
We on the hill-side standing rest and see
The light die out in brook and grass and tree.
Lately we walked upon the lonely downs
And through the still heat of the heavy day
We heard the medley of low drifting sounds
And through the matted brambles found a way
Or lightly trod upon enchanted grounds
Musing, or with rich blackberries made delay,
Where feed such fruit on the rich air, until
We struck like falling stars from Bignor Hill.
Down the vast slope, by chalky roads and steep,
With trees and bushes hidden here and there,
By circling turns into the valley deep
We came and left behind the hill-top air
For this cool village where to-night we sleep,
A country meal, a country bed to share,
With sleepy kisses and contented dreams
Over a land of still and narrow streams.
The light is ebbing in the dusky sky,
The valley floor is in the shadow. Hark!
With rushing and mysterious noises fly
The bats already, looking for the dark
With blinking still and unaccustomed eye.
Now over Rackham Mount a steady spark
Burns, rising slowly in the rising night,
And pledges peace and promises delight.
Now from the east the wheeling shade appears
And softly night into the valley falls,
Soft on the meadows drop her dewy tears,
Softly a darkness on the crumbled walls.
Now in the dusk the village disappears,
Men's songs are hushed there and the children's calls,
While night in passage swallows up the land
And in the shadow your hand seeks my hand.
Only the glimmering stars in heaven lie
And unseen trees with rustling still betray
How all the valley lives invisibly,
Where dim sweet odours, remnants of the day,
Float from the sleeping fields to please and die,
Borne up by roaming airs, that drift away
Beyond our hearing, vagabond and light,
To visit the cool meadows of the night.