Lxii

For this is just the time, The place, the mood in you and me, when all things chime. Clash forth life's common chord, whence, list how there ascend Harmonics far and faint, till our perception end,-- Reverberated notes whence we construct the scale Embracing what we know and feel and are! How fail To find or, better, lose your question, in this quick Reply which nature yields, ample and catholic? For, arm in arm, we too have reached, nay, passed, you see, The village-precinct; sun sets mild on Sainte-Marie-- We only catch the spire, and yet I seem to know What 's hid i' the turn o' the hill: how all the graves must glow Soberly, as each warms its little iron cross, Flourished about with gold, and graced (if private loss Be fresh) with stiff rope-wreath of yellow crisp bead-blooms Which tempt down birds to pay their supper, 'mid the tombs, With prattle good as song, amuse the dead awhile, If couched they hear beneath the matted camomile!