A lilac ribbon is unbound
A band of gradual rose untied,
And lo, the glowing book of day
Is opened on the mountainside.
What curves salute, what colors sound
From this so-rich-illumined scroll,
For whose perusal one need pay
Only a just delight as toll.
The brook’s clean silver set in stones
Is balanced by the silver sheen
Of clean-stripped logs, which in a field
Seem floating down a river of green.
Furze are not flowers, but the tones
Of sunlight that a bird has sung,
And broken purples but the yield
Of hoarded twilights, meadow-flung.
Against a heaven’s faithful blue,
A fadeless forest lifts its pines,
From shadows deepening into black
A slim and shadowy road inclines.
Upon the printed air, how true
Stand lizard, leaf and lake, page-still.
Here in the country of no lack,
What care can move, what grief can chill?