Tune

There's a lilt abroad in my head to-night
Like a nodding columbine,

It joins to no words, it draws no breath
From any idea of mine.

Yet it crosses and recrosses through my brain

With a sweetness of mulberry wine.

There are tapping red heels in the heart of this tune,
And the flirt of flickered fans,

There are meadows a-spray with a buttercup June
And halted caravans,

Where a gipsy fiddle cries "down the middle"

To a light that is Aldebaran's.

'Tis a tune to wake mummied kings and make

Fra Angelico's angels by scores
Cease their harping and hymns and indulge in the whims
Of a bal masqué, Louis Quatorze,
Where the little devils of rhythm perch

On the shoes of ambassadors.

Pavans? No! No! Nor sarabands,
Nor minuets for me.
But capriccioso, a stamping bolero
With a crowd come in to see,
And the moon winking over a curtain's edge

Like a peeping Tom Mercury.

Not a thought, no words, not anything
But a lilt in my head to-night.
Inconsequent as a butterfly's wing
Or the skim of a meteorite.
Put me down as the slave of a toss and a tune

A humble neophyte
With the trees and the breeze, as Terpsichore's

Dedicate eremite.

But, listen, the gusty wind is hushed,
The corn is stiff and still,
The moon like a beetle upside down
Sheds no more light on the hill,
And a little goblin spirited thought
Steals in against my will
Arousing me to the sight of inimical day.
Give the goblin creature its breakfast then, I say,
And loaded with morning I crawl upon my way
To the world where men ravel and rave but none of them dares to play.