Flowers At A Musical Party Poem by Jan Struther

SILENCE falls on the room.
Outside the window-panes the exiled gloom
Of the summer night
Presses, hungry for light.
Stilled now are voices and glances,
Forgotten all fret, all fear;
A twofold spell entrances
Eye and ear.

Now music rears its stem,
Breaks into leaf, bud, flower,
Flutters its petals, scatters them
To an unseen wind in a twinkling shower.
Now peony's ruby, round,
Full, deep and sombre sound
Runs like a rich bass under
The tulips' livelier splendour;
Columbine's fluted frills
Shake out their turns and trills,
While into space the lupin throws
Her delicate long arpeggios.

Which cadence is, which bloom?
Are we by Proserpine
Bewitched, or do we tend Apollo's shrine?
Silence falls on the room.
The last chord drifts away:
But the flowers, singing, stay.