Explore "A Night in June" by Madison Cawein on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ I. White as a lily moulded of Earth's milk / That eve the moon bloomed in a hyacinth sky; / Soft in the gleaming glens the wind went by, / Faint as a phantom clothed in unseen silk: / Bright as a naiad's leap, from shine to shade / The runnel twinkled through the shaken brier; / Above the hills one long cloud, pulsed with fire, / Flashed like a great enchantment-welded blade. / And when the western sky seemed some weird land, / And night a witching spell at whose command / One sloping star fell green from heav'n; and deep / The warm rose opened for the moth to sleep; / Then she, consenting, laid her hands in his, / And lifted up her lips for their first kiss.
/ II. There where they part, the porch's steps are strewn / With wind-blown petals of the purple vine; / Athwart the porch the shadow of a pine / Cleaves the white moonlight; and like some calm rune / Heaven says to Earth, shines the majestic moon; / And now a meteor draws a lilac line / Across the welkin, as if God would sign / The perfect poem of this night of June. / The wood-wind stirs the flowering chestnut-tree, / Whose curving blossoms strew the glimmering grass / Like crescents that wind-wrinkled waters glass; / And, like a moonstone in a frill of flame, / The dewdrop trembles on the peony, / As in a lover's heart his sweetheart's name.