The Flute

It was a night of smell and dew     When very old things seemed how new;     When speech was softest in the still     Air that loitered down the hill;     When the lime's sweetness could but creep     Like music to slow ears of sleep;     When far below the lapping sea     Lisped but of tired tranquillity....     No, 'twas a night that seemed almost     Of real night the little ghost,     As though a painter painted it     Out of the shallows of his wit--     The easy air, the whispered trees,     Faint prattle of strait distant seas,     Pettiness all: but hark, hark!     Large and rich in the narrow dark     Music rose. Was music never     Braver in her pure endeavour     Against the meanness of the world.     Her purple banner she unfurled     Of stars and suns upon the night     Amazed with the strange living light.     The notes rose where the dark trees knelt;     Their fiery joy made stillness melt     As flame in woods the low boughs burns,     Sere leaves, dry bushes, flame-shaped ferns.     The notes rose as great birds that rise     Majestically in lofty skies,     And in white clouds are lost; and then     Briefly they hushed, and woke again     Renewed.     Slowly silence came     As smoke after sinking flame     That spreads and thins across the sky     When day pales before it die.