Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke
Aubrey Thomas de Vere (1814–1902)Extracts from May Carols: ‘A sweet exhaustion seems to hold’
A
In spells of calm the shrouded eve:
The gorse itself a beamless gold
Puts forth: yet nothing seems to grieve.
The willowy fields are silver-grey;
Sad odours wander here and there;
And yet we feel that it is May.
From dripping bowers low carols swell
In mellower, glassier tones, as though
They mounted through a bubbling well.
Upon its drenched and drooping spire
The burden of the warm soft rains;
The purple hills grow nigh and nigher.
On expectations lovelier broods,
Listening, with lifted hand, while coils
The flooded rivulet through the woods.
A world with summer radiance drest
And all the glories of that year
Still sleeping in her sacred breast.