Songs of the Common Day, and Ave!

An Ode for the Shelley Centenary

by Charles G.D. Roberts

 

INDIAN SUMMER

 
WHAT touch hath set the breathing hills afire
     With amethyst, to quench them with a tear
     Of ecstasy? These common fields appear
The consecrated home of hopes past number.
So many visions, so entranced a slumber,
5

     Such dreams possess the noonday's luminous sphere,
     That earth, content with knowing Heaven so near,
Hath done with aspiration and desire.

In these unlooked-for hours of Truth's clear reign
     Unjarring fitness hath surprised our strife.

10
This radiance, that might seem to cheat the view
With loveliness too perfect to be true,
     But shows this vexed and self-delusive life
     Ideals whereto our Real must attain.