Earth's Complines

Before the feet of the dew
There came a call I knew,
⁠Luring me into the garden
Where the tall white lilies grew.

I stood in the dusk between
The companies of green,
⁠O'er whose aerial ranks
The lilies rose serene.

And the breathing air was stirred
By an unremembered word,—
⁠Soft, incommunicable
And wings not of a bird.

I heard the spent blooms sighing,
The expectant buds replying ;
⁠I felt the life of the leaves,
Ephemeral, yet undying.

The