After Reading Shakspere Blithe Fancy lightly builds with airy hands Or on the edges of the darkness peers, Breathless and frightened at the Voice she hears : Imagination (lo! the sky expands) Travels the blue arch and Cimmerian sands, Homeless on earth, the pilgrim of the spheres, The rush of light before the hurrying years, The Voice that cries in unfamiliar lands. Men weigh the moons that flood with eerie light The dusky vales of Saturn-wood and stream; After Reading Shakspere But who shall follow on the awful sweep deep? Onward he wanders in the unknown night, And we are shadows moving in a dream. The Hidden Valley I stray with Ariel and Caliban : I know the hill of windy pines-I know Where the jay's nest swings in the wild gorge below: Lightly I climb where fallen cedars span Bright rivers-climb to a valley under ban, Where west winds set a thousand bells ablow An eerie valley where in the morning glow I hear the music of the pipes of Pan. Mysterious horns blow by on the still airA satyr steps a wood-god's dewy notes Come faintly from a vale of tossing oats.But ho! what white thing in the canyon crossed? Gods! I shall come on Dian unaware, Look on her fearful beauty and be lost. The Poets Some cry of Sappho's lyre, of Saadi's flute, Comes back across the waste of mortal things: Men strive and die to reach the Dead Sea fruit Only the poets find immortal springs. Y Love's Vigil Love will outwatch the stars, and light the skies When the last star falls, and the silent dark devours; God's warrior, he will watch the allotted hours, And conquer with the look of his sad eyes: He shakes the kingdom of darkness with his sighs, His quiet sighs, while all the Infernal Powers Tremble and pale upon their central towers, Lest, haply, his bright universe arise. All will be well if he have strength to wait, Till his lost Pleiad, white and silver-shod, Regains her place to make the perfect Seven; |