My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains | |
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, | |
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains | |
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: | |
’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, | |
But being too happy in thine happiness, – | |
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, | |
In some melodious plot | |
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, | |
Singest of summer in full-throated ease. |
O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been | |
Cool’d a long age in the deep-delved earth, | |
Tasting of Flora and the country green, | |
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth! | |
O for a beaker full of the warm South, | |
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, | |
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, | |
And purple-stained mouth; | |
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, | |
And with thee fade away into the forest dim: |
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget | |
What thou among the leaves hast never known, | |
The weariness, the fever, and the fret | |
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; | |
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, | |
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; | |
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow | |
And leaden-eyed despairs, | |
Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, | |
Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow. |
Away! away! for I will fly to thee, | |
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, | |
But on the viewless wings of Poesy, | |
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: | |
Already with thee! tender is the night, | |
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, | |
Cluster’d around by all her starry Fays; | |
But here there is no light, | |
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown | |
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways. |
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, | |
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, | |
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet | |
Wherewith the seasonable month endows | |
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; | |
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; | |
Fast fading violets cover’d up in leaves; | |
And mid-May’s eldest child, | |
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, | |
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves. |
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time | |
I have been half in love with easeful Death, | |
Call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme, | |
To take into the air my quiet breath; | |
Now more than ever seems it rich to die, | |
To cease upon the midnight with no pain, | |
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad | |
In such an ecstasy! | |
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain – | |
To thy high requiem become a sod. |
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! | |
No hungry generations tread thee down; | |
The voice I hear this passing night was heard | |
In ancient days by emperor and clown: | |
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path | |
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, | |
She stood in tears amid the alien corn; | |
The same that oft-times hath | |
Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam | |
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. |
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell | |
To toll me back from thee to my sole self! | |
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well | |
As she is fam’d to do, deceiving elf. | |
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades | |
Past the near meadows, over the still stream, | |
Up the hill-side; and now ’tis buried deep | |
In the next valley-glades: | |
Was it a vision, or a waking dream? | |
Fled is that music: – Do I wake or sleep? |
Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness, | |
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, | |
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express | |
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: | |
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape | |
Of deities or mortals, or of both, | |
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? | |
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? | |
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? | |
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? |
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard | |
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; | |
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d, | |
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: | |
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave | |
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; | |
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, | |
Though winning near the goal – yet, do not grieve; | |
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, | |
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! |
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed | |
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu; | |
And, happy melodist, unwearied, | |
For ever piping songs for ever new; | |
More happy love! more happy, happy love! | |
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d, | |
For ever panting, and for ever young; | |
All breathing human passion far above, | |
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d, | |
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. |
Who are these coming to the sacrifice? | |
To what green altar, O mysterious priest, | |
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, | |
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest? | |
What little town by river or sea shore, | |
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel, | |
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn? | |
And, little town, thy streets for evermore | |
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell | |
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return. |
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede | |
Of marble men and maidens overwrought, | |
With forest branches and the trodden weed; | |
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought | |
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! | |
When old age shall this generation waste, | |
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe | |
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st, | |
Beauty is truth, truth beauty, – that is all | |
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. |
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, | |
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; | |
Conspiring with him how to load and bless | |
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; | |
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, | |
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; | |
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells | |
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, | |
And still more, later flowers for the bees, | |
Until they think warm days will never cease, | |
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells. |
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? | |
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find | |
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, | |
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; | |
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep, | |
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook | |
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: | |
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep | |
Steady thy laden head across a brook; | |
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, | |
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours. |
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? | |
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, – | |
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, | |
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; | |
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn | |
Among the river shallows, borne aloft | |
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; | |
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; | |
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft | |
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; | |
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies. |
No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist | |
Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine; | |
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d | |
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine; | |
Make not your rosary of yew-berries, | |
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be | |
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl | |
A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries; | |
For shade to shade will come too drowsily, | |
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul. |
But when the melancholy fit shall fall | |
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, | |
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all, | |
And hides the green hill in an April shroud; | |
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, | |
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave, | |
Or on the wealth of globed peonies; | |
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows, | |
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave, | |
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. |
She dwells with Beauty – Beauty that must die; | |
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips | |
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, | |
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips: | |
Ay, in the very temple of Delight | |
Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine, | |
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue | |
Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine; | |
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, | |
And be among her cloudy trophies hung. |
Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art – | |
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night | |
And watching, with eternal lids apart, | |
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite, | |
The moving waters at their priestlike task | |
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores, | |
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask | |
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors – | |
No – yet still steadfast, still unchangeable, | |
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast, | |
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, | |
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, | |
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, | |
And so live ever – or else swoon to death. |
(1838)
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, | |
Alone and palely loitering? | |
The sedge has withered from the lake, | |
And no birds sing. |
O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, | |
So haggard and so woe-begone? | |
The squirrel’s granary is full, | |
And the harvest’s done. |
I see a lily on thy brow, | |
With anguish moist and fever-dew, | |
And on thy cheeks a fading rose | |
Fast withereth too. |
I met a lady in the meads, | |
Full beautiful – a faery’s child, | |
Her hair was long, her foot was light, | |
And her eyes were wild. |
I made a garland for her head, | |
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; | |
She looked at me as she did love, | |
And made sweet moan. |
I set her on my pacing steed, | |
And nothing else saw all day long, | |
For sidelong would she bend, and sing | |
A faery’s song. |
She found me roots of relish sweet, | |
And honey wild, and manna-dew, | |
And sure in language strange she said – | |
‘I love thee true’. |
She took me to her elfin grot, | |
And there she wept and sighed full sore, | |
And there I shut her wild wild eyes | |
With kisses four. |
And there she lullèd me asleep | |
And there I dreamed – Ah! woe betide! – | |
The latest dream I ever dreamt | |
On the cold hill side. |
I saw pale kings and princes too, | |
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all: | |
They cried – ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci | |
Thee hath in thrall!’ |
I saw their starved lips in the gloam, | |
With horrid warning gapèd wide, | |
And I awoke and found me here. | |
On the cold hill’s side. |
And this is why I sojourn here | |
Alone and palely loitering, | |
Though the sedge is withered from the lake, | |
And no birds sing. |
I | |
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being, | |
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead | |
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, |
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, | |
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O Thou, | |
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed |
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, | |
Each like a corpse within its grave, until | |
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow |
Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill | |
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) | |
With living hues and odours plain and hill: |
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere; | |
Destroyer and Preserver; hear O hear! |
II | |
Thou on whose stream, ’mid the steep sky’s commotion, | |
Loose clouds like Earth’s decaying leaves are shed, | |
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean, |
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread | |
On the blue surface of thine aery surge, | |
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head |
Of some fierce Mænad, even from the dim verge | |
Of the horizon to the zenith’s height, | |
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou Dirge |
Of the dying year, to which this closing night | |
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, | |
Vaulted with all thy congregated might |
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere | |
Black rain and fire and hail will burst: O hear! |
III | |
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams | |
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, | |
Lulled by the coil of his chrystalline streams, |
Beside a pumice isle Baiæ’s bay, | |
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers | |
Quivering within the wave’s intenser day, |
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers | |
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou | |
For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers |
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below | |
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear | |
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know |
Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear, | |
And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear! |
IV | |
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; | |
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; | |
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share |
The impulse of thy strength, only less free | |
Than thou, O Uncontrollable! If even | |
I were as in my boyhood, and could be |
The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven, | |
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed | |
Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne’er have striven |
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. | |
Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! | |
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! |
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed | |
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud. |
V | |
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: | |
What if my leaves are falling like its own! | |
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies |
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone, | |
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, | |
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! |
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe | |
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth! | |
And, by the incantation of this verse, |
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth | |
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! | |
Be through my lips to unawakened Earth |
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, | |
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind? |
[Conclusion] | |
Whether the Sensitive-plant, or that | |
Which within its boughs like a spirit sat | |
Ere its outward form had known decay, | |
Now felt this change, – I cannot say. |
Whether that Lady’s gentle mind, | |
No longer with the form combined | |
Which scattered love – as stars do light, | |
Found sadness, where it left delight, |
I dare not guess; but in this life | |
Of error, ignorance and strife – | |
Where nothing is – but all things seem, | |
And we the shadows of the dream, |
It is a modest creed, and yet | |
Pleasant if one considers it, | |
To own that death itself must be, | |
Like all the rest, – a mockery. |
That garden sweet, that lady fair | |
And all sweet shapes and odours there | |
In truth have never past away – | |
’Tis we, ’tis ours, are changed – not they. |
For love, and beauty, and delight | |
There is no death nor change: their might | |
Exceeds our organs – which endure | |
No light – being themselves obscure. |
The One remains, the many change and pass; | |
Heaven’s light forever shines, Earth’s shadows fly; | |
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, | |
Stains the white radiance of Eternity, | |
Until Death tramples it to fragments. – Die, | |
If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek! | |
Follow where all is fled! – Rome’s azure sky, | |
Flowers, ruins, statues, music, words, are weak | |
The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak. |
Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my Heart? | |
Thy hopes are gone before: from all things here | |
They have departed; thou shouldst now depart! | |
A light is past from the revolving year, | |
And man, and woman; and what still is dear | |
Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither. | |
The soft sky smiles, – the low wind whispers near: | |
’Tis Adonais calls! oh, hasten thither, | |
No more let Life divide what Death can join together. |
That Light whose smile kindles the Universe, | |
That Beauty in which all things work and move, | |
That Benediction which the eclipsing Curse | |
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love | |
Which through the web of being blindly wove | |
By man and beast and earth and air and sea, | |
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of | |
The fire for which all thirst; now beams on me, | |
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality. |
The breath whose might I have invoked in song | |
Descends on me; my spirit’s bark is driven, | |
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng | |
Whose sails were never to the tempest given; | |
The massy earth and sphered skies are riven! | |
I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar; | |
Whilst burning through the inmost veil of Heaven, | |
The soul of Adonais, like a star, | |
Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are. |
Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate: | |
His keys were rusty, and the lock was dull, | |
So little trouble had been given of late; | |
Not that the place by any means was full, | |
But since the Gallic era ‘eighty-eight’ | |
The devils had ta’en a longer, stronger pull, | |
And ‘a pull altogether,’ as they say | |
At sea – which drew most souls another way. |
The angels all were singing out of tune, | |
And hoarse with having little else to do, | |
Excepting to wind up the sun and moon, | |
Or curb a runaway young star or two, | |
Or wild colt of a comet, which too soon | |
Broke out of bounds o’er the ethereal blue, | |
Splitting some planet with its playful tail, | |
As boats are sometimes by a wanton whale. |
The guardian seraphs had retired on high, | |
Finding their charges past all care below; | |
Terrestrial business fill’d nought in the sky | |
Save the recording angel’s black bureau; | |
Who found, indeed, the facts to multiply | |
With such rapidity of vice and wo, | |
That he had stripp’d off both his wings in quills, | |
And yet was in arrear of human ills. |
His business so augmented of late years, | |
That he was forced, against his will, no doubt, | |
(Just like those cherubs, earthly ministers,) | |
For some resource to turn himself about | |
And claim the help of his celestial peers, | |
To aid him ere he should be quite worn out | |
By the increased demand for his remarks; | |
Six angels and twelve saints were named his clerks. |
This was a handsome board – at least for heaven; | |
And yet they had even then enough to do, | |
So many conquerors’ cars were daily driven, | |
So many kingdoms fitted up anew; | |
Each day too slew its thousands six or seven, | |
Till at the crowning carnage, Waterloo, | |
They threw their pens down in divine disgust – | |
The page was so besmear’d with blood and dust. |
This by the way; ’tis not mine to record | |
What angels shrink from: even the very devil | |
On this occasion his own work abhorr’d, | |
So surfeited with the infernal revel: | |
Though he himself had sharpen’d every sword, | |
It almost quench’d his innate thirst of evil. | |
(Here Satan’s sole good work deserves insertion – | |
’Tis that he has both generals in reversion.) |
Let’s skip a few short years of hollow peace, | |
Which peopled earth no better, hell as wont, | |
And heaven none – they form the tyrant’s lease, | |
With nothing but new names subscribed upon’t; | |
’Twill one day finish: meantime they increase, | |
‘With seven heads and ten horns,’ and all in front, | |
Like Saint John’s foretold beast; but ours are born | |
Less formidable in the head than horn. |
In the first year of freedom’s second dawn | |
Died George the Third; although no tyrant, one | |
Who shielded tyrants, till each sense withdrawn | |
Left him nor mental nor external sun: | |
A better farmer ne’er brush’d dew from lawn, | |
A worse king never left a realm undone! | |
He died – but left his subjects still behind, | |
One half as mad – and t’other no less blind. |
He died! – his death made no great stir on earth; | |
His burial made some pomp; there was profusion | |
Of velvet, gilding, brass, and no great dearth | |
Of aught but tears – save those shed by collusion. | |
For these things may be bought at their true worth; | |
Of elegy there was the due infusion – | |
Bought also; and the torches, cloaks, and banners, | |
Heralds, and relics of old Gothic manners, |
Form’d a sepulchral melodrame. Of all | |
The fools who flock’d to swell or see the show, | |
Who cared about the corpse? The funeral | |
Made the attraction, and the black the woe. | |
There throbb’d not there a thought which pierced the | |
And when the gorgeous coffin was laid low, | |
It seem’d the mockery of hell to fold | |
The rottenness of eighty years in gold. |
So mix his body with the dust! It might | |
Return to what it must far sooner, were | |
The natural compound left alone to fight | |
Its way back into earth, and fire, and air; | |
But the unnatural balsams merely blight | |
What nature made him at his birth, as bare | |
As the mere million’s base unmummied clay – | |
Yet all his spices but prolong decay. |
He’s dead – and upper earth with him has done; | |
He’s buried; save the undertaker’s bill, | |
Or lapidary scrawl, the world is gone | |
For him, unless he left a German will; | |
But where’s the proctor who will ask his son? | |
In whom his qualities are reigning still, | |
Except that household virtue, most uncommon, | |
Of constancy to a bad, ugly woman. |
The Gods of old are silent on their shore | |
Since the great Pan expired, and through the roar | |
Of the Ionian waters broke a dread | |
Voice which proclaimed ‘the Mighty Pan is dead.’ | |
How much died with him! false or true, the dream | |
Was beautiful which peopled every stream | |
With more than finny tenants, and adorned | |
The woods and waters with coy nymphs that scorned | |
Pursuing Deities, or in the embrace | |
Of gods brought forth the high heroic race | |
Whose names are on the hills and o’er the seas. |
(1904)
’Tis time this heart should be unmoved | |
Since others it hath ceased to move, | |
Yet though I cannot be beloved | |
Still let me love. |
My days are in the yellow leaf | |
The flowers and fruits of love are gone – | |
The worm, the canker and the grief | |
Are mine alone. |
The fire that on my bosom preys | |
Is lone as some Volcanic Isle, | |
No torch is kindled at its blaze | |
A funeral pile! |
The hope, the fear, the jealous care | |
The exalted portion of the pain | |
And power of Love I cannot share | |
But wear the chain. |
But ’t is not thus – and ’t is not here | |
Such thoughts should shake my soul, nor now | |
Where glory decks the hero’s bier | |
Or binds his brow. |
The Sword – the Banner – and the Field | |
Glory and Greece around us see! | |
The Spartan borne upon his shield | |
Was not more free! |
Awake! (not Greece – She is awake!) | |
Awake my spirit – think through whom | |
Thy Life blood tracks its parent lake | |
And then strike home! |
Tread those reviving passions down | |
Unworthy Manhood; – unto thee | |
Indifferent should the smile or frown | |
Of Beauty be. |
If thou regret’st thy youth, why live? | |
The Land of honourable Death | |
Is here – up to the Field! and give | |
Away thy Breath. |
Seek out – less often sought than found, | |
A Soldier’s Grave – for thee the best, | |
Then look around and choose thy ground | |
And take thy Rest. |
Remember thee, remember thee! | |
Till Lethe quench life’s burning stream, | |
Remose and shame shall cling to thee, | |
And haunt thee like a feverish dream! |
Remember thee! Ay, doubt it not; | |
Thy husband too shall think of thee; | |
By neither shalt thou be forgot, | |
Thou false to him, thou fiend to me! |
(written 1813)
Best and brightest, come away – | |
Fairer far than this fair day | |
Which like thee to those in sorrow | |
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow | |
To the rough year just awake | |
In its cradle on the brake. – | |
The brightest hour of unborn spring | |
Through the winter wandering | |
Found, it seems, this halcyon morn | |
To hoar February born; | |
Bending from Heaven in azure mirth | |
It kissed the forehead of the earth | |
And smiled upon the silent sea, | |
And bade the frozen streams be free | |
And waked to music all their fountains, | |
And breathed upon the frozen mountains, | |
And like a prophetess of May | |
Strewed flowers upon the barren way, | |
Making the wintry world appear | |
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear. |
Away, away from men and towns | |
To the wild wood and the downs, | |
To the silent wilderness | |
Where the soul need not repress | |
Its music lest it should not find | |
An echo in another’s mind, | |
While the touch of Nature’s art | |
Harmonizes heart to heart. – | |
I leave this notice on my door | |
For each accustomed visitor – | |
‘I am gone into the fields | |
To take what this sweet hour yields. | |
Reflexion, you may come tomorrow, | |
Sit by the fireside with Sorrow – | |
You, with the unpaid bill, Despair, | |
You, tiresome verse-reciter Care, | |
I will pay you in the grave, | |
Death will listen to your stave – | |
Expectation too, be off! | |
To-day is for itself enough – | |
Hope, in pity mock not woe | |
With smiles, nor follow where I go; | |
Long having lived on thy sweet food, | |
At length I find one moment’s good | |
After long pain – with all your love | |
This you never told me of.’ |
Radiant Sister of the day, | |
Awake, arise and come away | |
To the wild woods and the plains | |
And the pools where winter-rains | |
Image all their roof of leaves, | |
Where the pine its garland weaves | |
Of sapless green and ivy dun | |
Round stems that never kiss the Sun – | |
Where the lawns and pastures be | |
And the sandhills of the sea – | |
Where the melting hoar-frost wets | |
The daisy-star that never sets, | |
And wind-flowers, and violets | |
Which yet join not scent to hue | |
Crown the pale year weak and new, | |
When the night is left behind | |
In the deep east dun and blind | |
And the blue noon is over us, | |
And the multitudinous | |
Billows murmur at our feet | |
Where the earth and ocean meet, | |
And all things seem only one | |
In the universal Sun. – |