The Poetry Corner

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

By William Ernest Henley

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!