Orpheus

AUTUMN Full amber-breasted light of harvest-moon, And sheaves of corn remembering the sun Laughing again for love of that caress When night is fallen, and the sleepy swoon Of warm waves lap the shoreland, one by one ; Forgetful kisses like a dream’s possess All the low-lying land, And, statelier than the swaying form Of some loud God, lifting the storm In his disastrous hand, Steps the sweet-voiced, the mellow motherhood Glad of the sun’s kiss, full of life, well wooed And won and brought to his bed, Proud of her rhythm in the lusty kiss, Triumphant and exulting in the mood Wherein her being is Crowned with a husband’s head, And left in solitude which is not solitude. She strides with mighty steps across the glade Laughing, her bosom swelling with the milk Born of a million kisses: leaps her womb Pregnant with fruits, and latter flowers, and shade Of the great cedar-groves: soft, soft, as silk, Her skin glows amber, silvered with the bloom Mist-like of the moon’s light, A slumberous haze of quietude Shed o’er the hardy limbs, and lustihood, 80