The Temptation

Shapes that coiled in the woods and waters,
Glittering sons and radiant daughters.
--D.G. ROSSETTI.

A silence softened the declining day,
A moan, and then a love-sigh died away.
Apples were falling one by one between
The grasses warm and shadows emerald green.

The sun sank down from branch to branch; a bird
Singing among the stirless leaves was heard.
A scent of soft and swooning blossoms strayed,
Like a slow sea-wave, through the deepening shade.

And, to hear better her who comes, with bent
Eyes, as in dream, and heart to meet her sent,
By paths where never sound the silence jars,

Voluptuous evening, in the heated air,
With hands of subtle and accomplice care,
Spread the insidious net of oblique stars.