William Cosmo Monkhouse

The Summer Pool

THERE is a singing in the summer air,  
The blue and brown moths flutter o’er the grass,  
The stubble bird is creaking in the wheat,  
And perch’d upon the honeysuckle-hedge  
Pipes the green linnet. Oh, the golden world!
The stir of life on every blade of grass,  
The motion and the joy on every bough,  
The glad feast everywhere, for things that love  
The sunshine, and for things that love the shade!  
 
 Aimlessly wandering with weary feet,
Watching the wool white clouds that wander by,  
I come upon a lonely place of shade,—  
A still green Pool, where with soft sound and stir  
The shadows of o’erhanging branches sleep,  
Save where they leave one dreamy space of blue,
O’er whose soft stillness ever and anon  
The feathery cirrus blows. Here unaware  
I pause, and leaning on my staff I add  
A shadow to the shadows; and behold!  
Dim dreams steal down upon me, with a hum  
Of little wings, a murmuring of boughs,  
The dusky stir and motion dwelling here,  
Within this small green world. O’ershadow’d  
By dusky greenery, tho’ all around  
The sunshine throbs on fields of wheat and bean,  
Downward I gaze into the dreamy blue,  
And pass into a waking sleep, wherein  
The green boughs rustle, feathery wreaths of cloud  
Pass softly, piloted by golden airs:  
The air is still,—no birds sing any more,—  
And helpless as a tiny flying thing,  
I am alone in all the world with God.  
 
 The wind dies—not a leaf stirs—on the Pool  
The fly scarce moves; earth seems to hold her breath  
Until her heart stops, listening silently
For the far footsteps of the coming rain!  
 
 While thus I pause, it seems that I have gain’d  
New eyes to see; my brain grows sensitive  
To trivial things that, at another hour,  
Had pass’d unheeded. Suddenly the air  
Shivers, the shadows in whose midst I stand  
Tremble and blacken—the blue eye o’ the Pool  
Is clos’d and clouded; with a sudden gleam  
Oiling its wings, a swallow darteth past,  
And weedling flowers beneath my feet thrust up
Their leaves, to feel the fragrant shower. Oh, hark!  
The thirsty leaves are troubled into sighs,  
And up above me, on the glistening boughs,  
Patters the summer rain!  
 
       Into a nook,
Screen’d by thick foliage of oak and beech,  
I creep for shelter; and the summer shower  
Murmurs around me. Oh, the drowsy sounds!  
The pattering rain, the numerous sigh of leaves,  
The deep, warm breathing of the scented air,
Sink sweet into my soul—until at last,  
Comes the soft ceasing of the gentle fall,  
And lo! the eye of blue within the Pool  
Opens again, while with a silvern gleam  
Dew diamonds twinkle moistly on the leaves,
Or, shaken downward by the summer wind,  
Fall melting on the Pool in rings of light!