Sonnet ("I live the summer...")

KENNETH GEB

South are swallows gone, and south

And sunward from my heart the village

Shelters in past weather's peace:

Now winter's words are on the mouth.

SONNET

I live the summer in my wind-chilled veins

Now winter's cunning hides along this coast;

I cheat the wind's lick in the narrow lanes:

A moment's sunburst trembles on first frost. '

Yesterday rustles from the limp, foxed page

And bears its news from nowhere to this time:

So long ago the whispers from that age,

So far my vineyard days, their flowering climb.

A stricter terrace rises with this moon

Whose gleam is steely on the lawn's dead rose

And the black branches that the leaves uncover.

The eye, in darkness, seeks for a far noon

To blaze again. The horn winds home for those

The seas will mourn, the farthest sand drift over.