Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke
John Addington Symonds (18401893)The Shepherd to the Evening Star
S
Show forth thy silver shining!
For thee the sunset skies
With love and light are pining:
The tents of evening spread for thee
Their rich and radiant canopy.
Above the pathway bending
Drooped their still boughs in odorous ease,
Thine advent cool attending:
But now the little winds that blow
Sway their faint petals to and fro.
Of olives interwoven
Respire again, and drink the dews;
And where their skirts are cloven,
Black funeral flames of cypresses
Shoot skyward from the purple seas.
Keep silence on the meadow;
And solitude hath spread the fells
With her aërial shadow;
I scarce can hear a sound, or see
A single thing to hinder thee.
The wonder of thy kisses:
Breathe in my brain the thoughts that steal
Through heaven’s blue wildernesses:
But when the maiden moon is free,
Leave me to sleep and dream of thee!