Ballade (Double Refrain) Of Midsummer Days And Nights - To W. H.

With a ripple of leaves and a tinkle of streams     The full world rolls in a rhythm of praise,     And the winds are one with the clouds and beams -     Midsummer days!    Midsummer days!     The dusk grows vast; in a purple haze,     While the West from a rapture of sunset rights,     Faint stars their exquisite lamps upraise -     Midsummer nights!    O midsummer nights!     The wood's green heart is a nest of dreams,     The lush grass thickens and springs and sways,     The rathe wheat rustles, the landscape gleams -     Midsummer days!    Midsummer days!     In the stilly fields, in the stilly ways,     All secret shadows and mystic lights,     Late lovers murmur and linger and gaze -     Midsummer nights!    O midsummer nights!     There's a music of bells from the trampling teams,     Wild skylarks hover, the gorses blaze,     The rich, ripe rose as with incense steams -     Midsummer days!    Midsummer days!     A soul from the honeysuckle strays,     And the nightingale as from prophet heights     Sings to the Earth of her million Mays -     Midsummer nights!    O midsummer nights!     Envoy     And it's O, for my dear and the charm that stays -     Midsummer days!    Midsummer days!     It's O, for my Love and the dark that plights -     Midsummer nights!    O midsummer nights!