Shadow Summer

For a moment, the darkness closes down.
And then out of hiding creeps a shadow
That, in its fierce longing not to go,
Not to let fade the last of summer's crown,
Has long past summer's dying lingered,
Has stroked the trees with smoky leaves,
Has the clouded sunsets fingered,
And imagined them rich with hues again,
Has imagined so many things- and grieves.
But perhaps not from the minds of men

The summer has entirely vanished.
So the shadow goes out on wings of night,
Seeking a sleeping dreamer by moonlight,
Seeking to find the summer banished
Still living on in a mind that dreams 
Of glory that will not fade and will not die,
Of a green-gold world rapt with sunbeams.
But alas! no summer can it see or find.
So it lingers determinedly by a sleeping eye,
And the moment the dreamer wakes, her mind

Beholds a vision of summer in glory,
Beholds trees grown green once more,
Beholds the sun rising on a golden shore,
Beholds- and knows the shadow's sad story.
Her heart overflows with summerwine golden;
Her tears are filled with sunlight that is not there.
She listens to the vision, knows herself beholden
To give the shadow a home and make things right,
And so makes a place where the summer fair
Has never died, nor faded from its height;

She makes a place where the summer sun
Burns, when it sets, in clouds of rapture.
She makes a place where the nights endure
Full of silver stars that have come undone
And slid down the hair of the night-maids.
She sings until the shadow's heart is full,
And it melts away into those imagined glades
Where green the summer reigns in rhapsody.
The dreamer now has a vision she cannot lull;
The shadow summer has invaded her poetry.