Poems (Kimball)/Day-Lilies

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DAY-LILIES.
 O SUMMER day, Delay! delay! One waving of thy brooding wing, One stirring of thy hazy wing,  And noontide light and heat Will find my dewy shadow-lair,  And burn the coolness from the grasses  That swathe my feet  In rank and billowy masses; And to this claustral twilight bring The sun's profanest glare.
    O summer day,     Delay! delay!Let naked hill and bare brown field     Parch in thy torrid ray, So this dim nook be unrevealed,     Where I,Deliciously concealed,    Among the lilies lie.  The delicate Day-lilies!  The white and wonderful lilies !  My dark green haunt so still is ​The wildest birdling dare not sing, Nor insect beat a gossamer wing, Nor zephyr lift the lightest thing,  Here, where the lustrous lilies,  The clear, resplendent lilies, Pour out their heavenly-sweet perfume,  And with their snowiness, In clusters chaste, illume  This dusk recess.
Soft-looted Silence, royal nun!  In this thy humid, emerald cell  Forever dwell!These flowers supernal ever shine,Pure-flamed, before thy virgin shrine!Here, one by one,  Tell o'er thy glistering, total beads,— A rosary strung on tangled weeds  And blades and stems that intertwist. The breath of lilies be thy prayers, Sweet-odored, wafted unawares Up through the morning's lucent airs  And evening's pallid mist!The glittering stars shall o'er thee pass, Deep-pillowed in the heavy grass;  These broad, smooth lily-leaves shall be  A glossy coverlet for thee,   Thy prayers and penance done,   O royal nun! ​ By day or night,  In dark or light, Thy fragrant shrine shall be the same  These slender tapers lambent still,  Nor blazing sun, nor mildew chill, Shall quench their alabaster flame.
A gleam, as of a crystal wand! And Day peers in with curious face;   The jealous sunshine, stealing round.  Doth warily chase   The cool, dank shadows on the ground; The cloister-walls no longer stand;  A garish glory fills the space, And lights the lush grass, loose and long; And startled by the wild bird's song,  Soft-looted Silence flees apace; But still serene the lilies shine,Pure-flamed, before her ruined shrine!
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