Song Of Poplars

Shepherd, to yon tall poplars tune your flute:     Let them pierce, keenly, subtly shrill,     The slow blue rumour of the hill;     Let the grass cry with an anguish of evening gold,     And the great sky be mute.     Then hearken how the poplar trees unfold     Their buds, yet close and gummed and blind,     In airy leafage of the mind,     Rustling in silvery whispers the twin-hued scales     That fade not nor grow old.     "Poplars and fountains and you cypress spires     Springing in dark and rusty flame,     Seek you aught that hath a name?     Or say, say: Are you all an upward agony     Of undefined desires?     "Say, are you happy in the golden march     Of sunlight all across the day?     Or do you watch the uncertain way     That leads the withering moon on cloudy stairs     Over the heaven's wide arch?     "Is it towards sorrow or towards joy you lift     The sharpness of your trembling spears?     Or do you seek, through the grey tears     That blur the sky, in the heart of the triumphing blue,     A deeper, calmer rift?"     So; I have tuned my music to the trees,     And there were voices, dim below     Their shrillness, voices swelling slow     In the blue murmur of hills, and a golden cry     And then vast silences.