After dark vapours have oppressed our plains
For a long dreary season, comes a day
Born of the gentle South, and clears away
From the sick heavens all unseemly stains.
The anxious month, relieved of its pains,
Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May;
The eyelids with the passing coolness play,
Like rose leaves with the drip of summer rains.
The calmest thoughts come round us-as of leaves
Budding,-fruit ripening in stillness,-autumn suns
Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves,-
Sweet Sappho’s cheek;-a smiling infant’s breath,-
The gradual sand that through an hour-glass runs,-
A woodland rivulet, a Poet’s death.
-John Keats