Midsummer midnight skies, <br />Midsummer midnight influences and airs, <br />The shining, sensitive silver of the sea <br />Touched with the strange-hued blazonings of dawn; <br />And all so solemnly still I seem to hear <br />The breathing of Life and Death, <br />The secular Accomplices, <br />Renewing the visible miracle of the world. <br /> <br />The wistful stars <br />Shine like good memories. The young morning wind <br />Blows full of unforgotten hours <br />As over a region of roses. Life and Death <br />Sound on--sound on . . . And the night magical, <br />Troubled yet comforting, thrills <br />As if the Enchanted Castle at the heart <br />Of the wood's dark wonderment <br />Swung wide his valves, and filled the dim sea-banks <br />With exquisite visitants: <br />Words fiery-hearted yet, dreams and desires <br />With living looks intolerable, regrets <br />Whose voice comes as the voice of an only child <br />Heard from the grave: shapes of a Might-Have-Been - <br />Beautiful, miserable, distraught - <br />The Law no man may baffle denied and slew. <br /> <br />The spell-bound ships stand as at gaze <br />To let the marvel by. The grey road glooms . . . <br />Glimmers . . . goes out . . . and there, O, there where it fades, <br />What grace, what glamour, what wild will, <br />Transfigure the shadows? Whose, <br />Heart of my heart, Soul of my soul, but yours? <br /> <br />Ghosts--ghosts--the sapphirine air <br />Teems with them even to the gleaming ends <br />Of the wild day-spring! Ghosts, <br />Everywhere--everywhere--till I and you <br />At last--dear love, at last! - <br />Are in the dreaming, even as Life and Death, <br />Twin-ministers of the unoriginal Will.<br /><br />William Ernest Henley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/midsummer-midnight-skies/
