Softly as feathers That fall through the twilight When wild swans are winging Back to the northward: Softly as waters, Unruffled, and tideless, Laving the mosses Of inland seas: Soft through the forest, And down through the valley, Light as a breath o'er the pools of the marish, Still as a moonbeam over the pastures, Goeth Scirocco. Warm his breath: The night-flowers know it, Love it, and open Their blooms for its sweetness: Warm the tender low wind of his pinions Scarce brushing together the spires of the grasses: Ah, how they whisper, the little green leaflets Black in the dusk or grey in the moonlight: Ah, how they whisper and shiver, the tremulous Leaves of the poplar, and shimmer and rustle When soft as a vapour that steals from the marshes The wings of Scirocco fan silently through them. Oft-times he lingers By ruined nests Deep in the hedgerows, And bloweth a feather In little eddies, A yellow feather That once had fluttered On a breast alive with A rapture of song: But slowly ceaseth, And passeth sadly. Oft-times he riseth Up through the branches Where the fireflies wander Up through the branches Of oak and chestnut, And stirs so gently With sway of his wings That the leaves, dreaming, Think that a moonbeam Only, or moonshine, Moves through the heart of them. Upward he soareth Oft, silently floating Through the purple aether, Still as the fern-owl over the covert, Or as allocco haunting the woodland, Up to the soft curded foam of the cloudlets, The white dappled cloudlets the south-wind bringeth. There, dreaming, he moveth Or sails through the moonlight, Till chill in the high upper air and the silence, Slowly he sinketh Earthward again, Silently floateth Down o'er the woodlands: Foldeth his wings and slow through the branches Drifts, scarcely breathing, Till tired, 'mid the flowers or the hedgerows he creepeth, Whispers alow 'mid the spires of the grasses; Or swooning at last to motionless slumber Floats like a shadow adrift on the pastures. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MENAPHON: SAMELA by ROBERT GREENE AT THE GRAVE OF BURNS; SEVEN YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH VERSES ON MRS. ROWE by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD IN VINCULIS; SONNETS WRITTEN IN AN IRISH PRISON: A DREAM OF GOOD by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT |