MIDSUMMER

We went, then, when the afternoon Lay white with heat and innocent, Skirting the edge of the blind cove; Idly observing how the moon Waned, and what the solstice meant, To where the water flashed like brass. We heard our sober voices sound Through light and shade, across the lake, Like the good noise of argument. We learned a seasonal intent.

But we were savages indeed Who did not know the summer sun Traveled a deeper course than ours; Nor understood our helplessness To stay the light so quickly run; Though we outlived the insects there In the warm shadow, sharp and small, And one of us the others, if Violence did not overrun Us all, as it has sometimes done.

Nothing disturbed our aimlessness That afternoon; we found our way Through the gray hornbeam to the shore. We would remember still the path. But what we said we cannot say. We'd not foreseen how time would change Ourselves so much that we should find What we had been, like what we are, Enduring change; whose holiday Seems casual and far away.