Indian Summer

BACK from the skies, again does Beauty’s flame
Consume the gods that on the good earth be ;
All things, pricked to the quick with witchery,
Look, longing, up the lovely way she came,
Echoes of May say over her dear name,
Ay, every month has sent its delicacy, —
Deft-woven. distilled, low-voiced, to smell, or see,
Or hear.—till June herself is put to shame.
The rarer birds and blooms were hardly sweet
And fair enough to mingle with the haze
That rings the hill, nor greenest leaves were meet
To trim these phantom trees ; no wind that plays
Could now touch soft enough. The hours, so fleet,
With slower step lead on the wildered days.