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| SUCH times as windy moods do stir | |
| The foamless billows of the wheat, | |
| I glimpse the floating limbs of her | |
| In instant visions melting sweet. | |
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| A milky shoulder’s dip and gleam, | 5 |
| Or arms that clasp upon the air, | |
| An upturned face’s rosy dream, | |
| Half blinded by the sunlit hair. | |
| |
| A haunting mermaid mid the swell | |
| And rapture of that summer sea; | 10 |
| A siren of elusive spell, | |
| Born of the womb of mystery,— | |
| |
| That, airy-limbed, swims fancy free, | |
| Glad in the summer’s perfect prime, | |
| Full-veined with life’s felicity | 15 |
| And faith that knows no winter-time. | |
| |
| At eve, when firefly lustre burns | |
| On that green flood like mirrored stars, | |
| Against the hush her faint voice yearns, | |
| Breathed to a light harp’s happy bars. | 20 |
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| Till sinks at last in sunset slow | |
| Midsummer’s long, luxurious day, | |
| And amber-red the ripe waves glow, | |
| Ah, then it is she slips away! | |
| |
| For with the blighting dog-star’s blaze, | 25 |
| The reapers wade within the wheat, | |
| And as they work in harvest ways, | |
| What amorous sights their vision cheat! | |
| |
| For lo, upon some eddying wash | |
| Or hollow of the wind-swept grain, | 30 |
| Her wafted fingers foam-like flash, | |
| Her laughing body drifts amain. | |
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| It is the sylph’s divine farewell; | |
| A sighing ebbs along the wheat; | |
| Borne onward by a golden swell, | 35 |
| She fades into the wrinkling heat. | |
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