Alabama, igi8. 51 



AUGUST NIGHT 



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THE grasses are alive tonight with song 

 That busy insects of the summer dusk 

 Through all the breathing countryside prolong ; 

 The air is laden with the harvest-musk. 

 Above the western gable hangs a glow 

 Of silver beauty in the turquoise sky 

 And there the moon has bent her silver bow, '. 

 And all the dreams of ancient powers go by — 

 The orient trembles in a mist of moon 

 And hidden cities swing into the loom 

 Of woven magic purple lilies bloom 

 On tall stalks bending to an alien breeze. 

 And yonder come strange sails from foreign seas, 

 Triremes of Greece, and those feluccas blown 

 By Naples in the fairy-dreams of time 

 On wondrous oceans men have never known 

 Except in breathings of pellucid rhyme 

 The stars are not so brilliant, but they shape, 

 And through dim spaces hung with mists of gray 

 The visages of nymphs and satyrs gape 

 It is a magic moment of the earth, 

 When lovers pray, and priests on towers of prayer 

 Call to the gods of mystery and of mirth, 

 And scatter incense through the holy air 

 The cricket and the katydid make sweet 

 The closer spaces, and in dim woods there 

 Late whippoorwills their mournful call repeat, 

 A Bob White choirs, the mocking-bird replies. 

 The brooding light grows softer in the skies. 

 The river gurgles oars beyond us sweep. 

 Out of the night look down a thousand eyes — 

 For one could waste such lovely hours in sleep ! 



— Folger McKinsey. 



