Didst mark the ghostly gold of this grave, still,Conceited minnow thro' these twisted roots,Thrust o'er the smoky topaz of this rill,Dull-slumbering here? Or did those insect flutes—Sleepy with sunshine—buzz thee that forlornTale of Tithonus and the bashful Morn?Until two tears gleamed in the stealing streamTrembling its polish o'er the winking grail?—Nay! didst perplex thee with some poet planTo drug this air with beauty to make dream,—Ah, discreet Cunning, watching in yon vale!—Me, wildwood-wandered from the marts of Man!
Didst mark the ghostly gold of this grave, still,Conceited minnow thro' these twisted roots,Thrust o'er the smoky topaz of this rill,Dull-slumbering here? Or did those insect flutes—Sleepy with sunshine—buzz thee that forlornTale of Tithonus and the bashful Morn?Until two tears gleamed in the stealing streamTrembling its polish o'er the winking grail?—Nay! didst perplex thee with some poet planTo drug this air with beauty to make dream,—Ah, discreet Cunning, watching in yon vale!—Me, wildwood-wandered from the marts of Man!
Didst mark the ghostly gold of this grave, still,
Conceited minnow thro' these twisted roots,
Thrust o'er the smoky topaz of this rill,
Dull-slumbering here? Or did those insect flutes—
Sleepy with sunshine—buzz thee that forlorn
Tale of Tithonus and the bashful Morn?
Until two tears gleamed in the stealing stream
Trembling its polish o'er the winking grail?—
Nay! didst perplex thee with some poet plan
To drug this air with beauty to make dream,—
Ah, discreet Cunning, watching in yon vale!—
Me, wildwood-wandered from the marts of Man!
There are some strange words, which have been retained, as the author may have been using 'poetic licence':
e.g. 'aventured spears', which may have been quartz-tipped (aventurine); 'beryle', possibly referring to the color of beryl (light green, etc.); 'bowldered', alternative spelling for 'bouldered'; 'guant', which may be 'gaunt misspelled, or it may refer to a bird (guan)... "Laughed the guant guards among the crowd"; etc. And 'accompaning' still needs to elide the second 'a' to fit the metre.
Some words are obviously ancient, or dialectic, and some are akin to some of the words in the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. The transcriber prefers not to change anything the author wrote, as a slightly different spelling may also imply a slightly different inflexion.
There are, however, two probable printer's errors, which have been amended:
Page 129: 'passsion' corrected to 'passion': "To principles of passion and of pride,"
Page 154: Removed extraneous 'the': "That hoot to the (the) riddling arrows of rain and of seas,"
(Corrections are also indicated, in the text, by a dotted line underneath the correction.
Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text willappear.)