IThe Father of Heaven.Spin, daughter Mary, spin,Twirl your wheel with silver din;Spin, daughter Mary, spin,Spin a tress for Viola.Angels.Spin, Queen Mary, aBrown tress for Viola!IIThe Father of Heaven.Weave, hands angelical,Weave a woof of flesh to pall—Weave, hands angelical—Flesh to pall our Viola.Angels.Weave, singing brothers, aVelvet flesh for Viola!IIIThe Father of Heaven.Scoop, young Jesus, for her eyes,Wood-browned pools of Paradise—Young Jesus, for the eyes,For the eyes of Viola.Angels.Tint, Prince Jesus, aDuskèd eye for Viola!IVThe Father of Heaven.Cast a star therein to drown,Like a torch in cavern brown,Sink a burning star to drownWhelmed in eyes of Viola.Angels.Lave, Prince Jesus, aStar in eyes of Viola!VThe Father of Heaven.Breathe, Lord Paraclete,To a bubbled crystal meet—Breathe, Lord Paraclete—Crystal soul for Viola.Angels.Breathe, Regal Spirit, aFlashing soul for Viola!VIThe Father of Heaven.Child-angels, from your wingsFall the roseal hoverings,Child-angels, from your wingsOn the cheeks of Viola.Angels.Linger, rosy reflex, aQuenchless stain, on Viola!VIIAll things being accomplished, saith the Father of Heaven:Bear her down, and bearing, sing,Bear her down on spyless wing,Bear her down, and bearing, sing,With a sound of viola.Angels.Music as her name is, aSweet sound of Viola!VIIIWheeling angels, past espial,Danced her down with sound of viol;Wheeling angels, past espial,Descanting on "Viola."Angels.Sing, in our footing, aLovely lilt of "Viola!"IXBaby smiled, mother wailed,Earthward while the sweetling sailed;Mother smiled, baby wailed,When to earth came Viola.And her elders shall say:So soon have we taught you aWay to weep, poor Viola!XSmile, sweet baby, smile,For you will have weeping-while;Native in your Heaven is smile,—But your weeping, Viola?Whence your smiles, we know, but ah!Whence your weeping, Viola?—Our first gift to you is aGift of tears, my Viola!
IThe Father of Heaven.Spin, daughter Mary, spin,Twirl your wheel with silver din;Spin, daughter Mary, spin,Spin a tress for Viola.
Angels.Spin, Queen Mary, aBrown tress for Viola!
IIThe Father of Heaven.Weave, hands angelical,Weave a woof of flesh to pall—Weave, hands angelical—Flesh to pall our Viola.
Angels.Weave, singing brothers, aVelvet flesh for Viola!
IIIThe Father of Heaven.Scoop, young Jesus, for her eyes,Wood-browned pools of Paradise—Young Jesus, for the eyes,For the eyes of Viola.
Angels.Tint, Prince Jesus, aDuskèd eye for Viola!
IVThe Father of Heaven.Cast a star therein to drown,Like a torch in cavern brown,Sink a burning star to drownWhelmed in eyes of Viola.
Angels.Lave, Prince Jesus, aStar in eyes of Viola!
VThe Father of Heaven.Breathe, Lord Paraclete,To a bubbled crystal meet—Breathe, Lord Paraclete—Crystal soul for Viola.
Angels.Breathe, Regal Spirit, aFlashing soul for Viola!
VIThe Father of Heaven.Child-angels, from your wingsFall the roseal hoverings,Child-angels, from your wingsOn the cheeks of Viola.
Angels.Linger, rosy reflex, aQuenchless stain, on Viola!
VIIAll things being accomplished, saith the Father of Heaven:Bear her down, and bearing, sing,Bear her down on spyless wing,Bear her down, and bearing, sing,With a sound of viola.
Angels.Music as her name is, aSweet sound of Viola!
VIIIWheeling angels, past espial,Danced her down with sound of viol;Wheeling angels, past espial,Descanting on "Viola."
Angels.Sing, in our footing, aLovely lilt of "Viola!"
IXBaby smiled, mother wailed,Earthward while the sweetling sailed;Mother smiled, baby wailed,When to earth came Viola.And her elders shall say:So soon have we taught you aWay to weep, poor Viola!
XSmile, sweet baby, smile,For you will have weeping-while;Native in your Heaven is smile,—But your weeping, Viola?
Whence your smiles, we know, but ah!Whence your weeping, Viola?—Our first gift to you is aGift of tears, my Viola!
Francis M. W. M.
This labouring, vast, Tellurian galleon,Riding at anchor off the orient sun,Had broken its cable, and stood out to spaceDown some frore Arctic of the aerial ways:And now, back warping from the inclement main,Its vapourous shroudage drenched with icy rain,It swung into its azure roads again;When, floated on the prosperous sun-gale, youLit, a white halcyon auspice, 'mid our frozen crew.To the Sun, stranger, surely you belong,Giver of golden days and golden song;Nor is it by an all-unhappy planYou bear the name of me, his constant Magian.Yet ah! from any other that it came,Lest fated to my fate you be, as to my name.When at the first those tidings did they bring,My heart turned troubled at the ominous thing:Though well may such a title him endower,For whom a poet's prayer implores a poet's power.The Assisian, who kept plighted faith to three,To Song, to Sanctitude, and Poverty,(In two alone of whom most singers proveA fatal faithfulness of during love!);He the sweet Sales, of whom we scarcely kenHow God he could love more, he so loved men;The crown and crowned of Laura and Italy;And Fletcher's fellow—from these, and not from me,Take you your name, and take your legacy!Or, if a right successive you declareWhen worms, for ivies, intertwine my hair,Take but this Poesy that now followethMy clayey best with sullen servile breath,Made then your happy freedman by testating death.My song I do but hold for you in trust,I ask you but to blossom from my dust.When you have compassed all weak I began,Diviner poet, and ah! diviner man—The man at feud with the perduring childIn you before song's altar nobly reconciled—From the wise heavens I half shall smile to seeHow little a world, which owned you, needed me.If, while you keep the vigils of the night,For your wild tears make darkness all too bright,Some lone orb through your lonely window peeps,As it played lover over your sweet sleeps,Think it a golden crevice in the sky,Which I have pierced but to behold you by!And when, immortal mortal, droops your head,And you, the child of deathless song, are dead;Then, as you search with unaccustomed glanceThe ranks of Paradise for my countenance,Turn not your tread along the Uranian sodAmong the bearded counsellors of God;For, if in Eden as on earth are we,I sure shall keep a younger company:Pass where beneath their rangèd gonfalonsThe starry cohorts shake their shielded suns,The dreadful mass of their enridgèd spears;Pass where majestical the eternal peers,The stately choice of the great Saintdom, meet—A silvern segregation, globed completeIn sandalled shadow of the Triune feet;Pass by where wait, young poet-wayfarer,Your cousined clusters, emulous to shareWith you the roseal lightnings burning 'mid their hair;Pass the crystalline sea, the Lampads seven:—Look for me in the nurseries of Heaven.
This labouring, vast, Tellurian galleon,Riding at anchor off the orient sun,Had broken its cable, and stood out to spaceDown some frore Arctic of the aerial ways:And now, back warping from the inclement main,Its vapourous shroudage drenched with icy rain,It swung into its azure roads again;When, floated on the prosperous sun-gale, youLit, a white halcyon auspice, 'mid our frozen crew.
To the Sun, stranger, surely you belong,Giver of golden days and golden song;Nor is it by an all-unhappy planYou bear the name of me, his constant Magian.Yet ah! from any other that it came,Lest fated to my fate you be, as to my name.When at the first those tidings did they bring,My heart turned troubled at the ominous thing:Though well may such a title him endower,For whom a poet's prayer implores a poet's power.The Assisian, who kept plighted faith to three,To Song, to Sanctitude, and Poverty,(In two alone of whom most singers proveA fatal faithfulness of during love!);He the sweet Sales, of whom we scarcely kenHow God he could love more, he so loved men;The crown and crowned of Laura and Italy;And Fletcher's fellow—from these, and not from me,Take you your name, and take your legacy!
Or, if a right successive you declareWhen worms, for ivies, intertwine my hair,Take but this Poesy that now followethMy clayey best with sullen servile breath,Made then your happy freedman by testating death.My song I do but hold for you in trust,I ask you but to blossom from my dust.When you have compassed all weak I began,Diviner poet, and ah! diviner man—The man at feud with the perduring childIn you before song's altar nobly reconciled—From the wise heavens I half shall smile to seeHow little a world, which owned you, needed me.If, while you keep the vigils of the night,For your wild tears make darkness all too bright,Some lone orb through your lonely window peeps,As it played lover over your sweet sleeps,Think it a golden crevice in the sky,Which I have pierced but to behold you by!
And when, immortal mortal, droops your head,And you, the child of deathless song, are dead;Then, as you search with unaccustomed glanceThe ranks of Paradise for my countenance,Turn not your tread along the Uranian sodAmong the bearded counsellors of God;For, if in Eden as on earth are we,I sure shall keep a younger company:Pass where beneath their rangèd gonfalonsThe starry cohorts shake their shielded suns,The dreadful mass of their enridgèd spears;Pass where majestical the eternal peers,The stately choice of the great Saintdom, meet—A silvern segregation, globed completeIn sandalled shadow of the Triune feet;Pass by where wait, young poet-wayfarer,Your cousined clusters, emulous to shareWith you the roseal lightnings burning 'mid their hair;Pass the crystalline sea, the Lampads seven:—Look for me in the nurseries of Heaven.
Little Jesus, wast Thou shyOnce, and just so small as I?And what did it feel like to beOut of Heaven, and just like me?Didst Thou sometimes think ofthere,And ask where all the angels were?I should think that I would cryFor my house all made of sky;I would look about the air,And wonder where my angels were;And at waking 'twould distress me—Not an angel there to dress me!Hadst Thou ever any toys,Like us little girls and boys?And didst Thou play in Heaven with allThe angels, that were not too tall,With stars for marbles? Did the thingsPlayCan you see me?through their wings?Didst Thou kneel at night to pray,And didst Thou join Thy hands, this way?And did they tire sometimes, being young,And make the prayer seem very long?And dost Thou like it best, that weShould join our hands to pray to Thee?I used to think, before I knew,The prayer not said unless we do.And did Thy Mother at the nightKiss Thee, and fold the clothes in right?And didst Thou feel quite good in bed,Kissed, and sweet, and Thy prayers said?Thou canst not have forgotten allThat it feels like to be small:And Thou know'st I cannot prayTo Thee in my father's way—When Thou wast so little, say,Couldst Thou talk Thy Father's way?—So, a little Child, come downAnd hear a child's tongue like Thy own;Take me by the hand and walk,And listen to my baby-talk.To Thy Father show my prayer(He will look, Thou art so fair),And say: "O Father, I, Thy Son,Bring the prayer of a little one."And He will smile, that children's tongueHas not changed since Thou wast young!
Little Jesus, wast Thou shyOnce, and just so small as I?And what did it feel like to beOut of Heaven, and just like me?Didst Thou sometimes think ofthere,And ask where all the angels were?I should think that I would cryFor my house all made of sky;I would look about the air,And wonder where my angels were;And at waking 'twould distress me—Not an angel there to dress me!
Hadst Thou ever any toys,Like us little girls and boys?And didst Thou play in Heaven with allThe angels, that were not too tall,With stars for marbles? Did the thingsPlayCan you see me?through their wings?
Didst Thou kneel at night to pray,And didst Thou join Thy hands, this way?And did they tire sometimes, being young,And make the prayer seem very long?And dost Thou like it best, that weShould join our hands to pray to Thee?I used to think, before I knew,The prayer not said unless we do.And did Thy Mother at the nightKiss Thee, and fold the clothes in right?And didst Thou feel quite good in bed,Kissed, and sweet, and Thy prayers said?
Thou canst not have forgotten allThat it feels like to be small:And Thou know'st I cannot prayTo Thee in my father's way—When Thou wast so little, say,Couldst Thou talk Thy Father's way?—So, a little Child, come downAnd hear a child's tongue like Thy own;Take me by the hand and walk,And listen to my baby-talk.To Thy Father show my prayer(He will look, Thou art so fair),And say: "O Father, I, Thy Son,Bring the prayer of a little one."
And He will smile, that children's tongueHas not changed since Thou wast young!
Where its umbrage[A]was enrooted,Sat, white-suited,Sat, green-amiced and bare-footed,Spring, amid her minstrelsy;There she sat amid her ladies,Where the shade isSheen as Enna mead ere Hades'Gloom fell thwart Persephone.Dewy buds were interstrownThrough her tresses hanging down,And her feetWere most sweet,Tinged like sea-stars, rosied brown.A throng of children like to flowers were sownAbout the grass beside, or clomb her knee:I looked who were that favoured company.And one there stoodAgainst the beamy floodOf sinking day, which, pouring its abundance,Sublimed the illuminous and volute redundanceOf locks that, half dissolving, floated round her face;As see I mightFar off a lily-cluster poised in sunDispread its gracile curls of light.I knew what chosen child was there in place!I knew there might no brows be, save of one,With such Hesperian fulgence compassèd,Which in her moving seemed to wheel about her head.O Spring's little children, more loud your lauds upraise,For this is even Sylvia with her sweet, feat ways!Your lovesome labours lay away,And prank you out in holiday,For syllabling to Sylvia;And all you birds on branches, lave your mouths with May,To bear with me this burthenFor singing to Sylvia!Spring, goddess, is it thou, desirèd long?And art thou girded round with this young train?—If ever I did do thee ease in song,Now of thy grace let me one meed obtain,And list thou to one plain.Oh, keep still in thy train,After the years when others therefrom fade,This tiny, well-belovèd maid!To whom the gate of my heart's fortalice,With all which in it is,And the shy self who doth therein immew him'Gainst what loud leaguerers battailously woo him,I, bribèd traitor to him,Set open for one kiss.A kiss? for a child's kiss?Aye, goddess, even for this.Once, bright Sylviola! in days not far,Once—in that nightmare-time which still doth hauntMy dreams, a grim, unbidden visitant—Forlorn, and faint, and stark,I had endured through watches of the darkThe abashless inquisition of each star,Yea, was the outcast markOf all those heavenly passers' scrutiny;Stood bound and helplesslyFor Time to shoot his barbèd minutes at me;Suffered the trampling hoof of every hourIn night's slow-wheelèd car;Until the tardy dawn dragged me at lengthFrom under those dread wheels; and, bled of strength,I waited the inevitable last.Then there came pastA child; like thee, a spring-flower; but a flowerFallen from the budded coronal of Spring,And through the city-streets blown withering.She passed,—O brave, sad, lovingest, tender thing!—And of her own scant pittance did she give,That I might eat and live:Then fled, a swift and trackless fugitive.Therefore I kissed in theeThe heart of Childhood, so divine for me;And her, through what sore ways,And what unchildish days,Borne from me now, as then, a trackless fugitive.Therefore I kissed in theeHer, child! and innocency,And spring, and all things that have gone from me,And that shall never be;All vanished hopes, and all most hopeless bliss,Came with thee to my kiss.And ah! so long myself had strayed afarFrom child, and woman, and the boon earth's green,And all wherewith life's face is fair beseen;Journeying its journey bareFive suns, except of the all-kissing sunUnkissed of one;Almost I had forgotThe healing harms,And whitest witchery, a-lurk in thatAuthentic cestus of two girdling arms:And I remembered notThe subtle sanctities which dartFrom childish lips' unvalued precious brush,Nor how it makes the sudden lilies pushBetween the loosening fibres of the heart.Then, that thy little kissShould be to me all this,Let workaday wisdom blink sage lids thereat;Which towers a flight three hedgerows high, poor bat!And straightway charts me out the empyreal air.Its chart I wing not by, its canon of worthScorn not, nor reck though mine should breed it mirth:And howso thou and I may be disjoint,Yet still my falcon spirit makes her pointOver the covert whereThou, sweetest quarry, hast put in from her!Soul, hush these sad numbers, too sad to upraiseIn hymning bright Sylvia, unlearn'd in such ways!Our mournful moods lay me away,And prank our thoughts in holiday,For syllabling to Sylvia;When all the birds on branches lave their mouths with May,To bear with us this burthenFor singing to Sylvia!
Where its umbrage[A]was enrooted,Sat, white-suited,Sat, green-amiced and bare-footed,Spring, amid her minstrelsy;There she sat amid her ladies,Where the shade isSheen as Enna mead ere Hades'Gloom fell thwart Persephone.Dewy buds were interstrownThrough her tresses hanging down,And her feetWere most sweet,Tinged like sea-stars, rosied brown.A throng of children like to flowers were sownAbout the grass beside, or clomb her knee:I looked who were that favoured company.And one there stoodAgainst the beamy floodOf sinking day, which, pouring its abundance,Sublimed the illuminous and volute redundanceOf locks that, half dissolving, floated round her face;As see I mightFar off a lily-cluster poised in sunDispread its gracile curls of light.I knew what chosen child was there in place!I knew there might no brows be, save of one,With such Hesperian fulgence compassèd,Which in her moving seemed to wheel about her head.
O Spring's little children, more loud your lauds upraise,For this is even Sylvia with her sweet, feat ways!Your lovesome labours lay away,And prank you out in holiday,For syllabling to Sylvia;And all you birds on branches, lave your mouths with May,To bear with me this burthenFor singing to Sylvia!
Spring, goddess, is it thou, desirèd long?And art thou girded round with this young train?—If ever I did do thee ease in song,Now of thy grace let me one meed obtain,And list thou to one plain.Oh, keep still in thy train,After the years when others therefrom fade,This tiny, well-belovèd maid!To whom the gate of my heart's fortalice,With all which in it is,And the shy self who doth therein immew him'Gainst what loud leaguerers battailously woo him,I, bribèd traitor to him,Set open for one kiss.
A kiss? for a child's kiss?Aye, goddess, even for this.Once, bright Sylviola! in days not far,Once—in that nightmare-time which still doth hauntMy dreams, a grim, unbidden visitant—Forlorn, and faint, and stark,I had endured through watches of the darkThe abashless inquisition of each star,Yea, was the outcast markOf all those heavenly passers' scrutiny;Stood bound and helplesslyFor Time to shoot his barbèd minutes at me;Suffered the trampling hoof of every hourIn night's slow-wheelèd car;Until the tardy dawn dragged me at lengthFrom under those dread wheels; and, bled of strength,I waited the inevitable last.Then there came pastA child; like thee, a spring-flower; but a flowerFallen from the budded coronal of Spring,And through the city-streets blown withering.She passed,—O brave, sad, lovingest, tender thing!—And of her own scant pittance did she give,That I might eat and live:Then fled, a swift and trackless fugitive.Therefore I kissed in theeThe heart of Childhood, so divine for me;And her, through what sore ways,And what unchildish days,Borne from me now, as then, a trackless fugitive.Therefore I kissed in theeHer, child! and innocency,And spring, and all things that have gone from me,And that shall never be;All vanished hopes, and all most hopeless bliss,Came with thee to my kiss.And ah! so long myself had strayed afarFrom child, and woman, and the boon earth's green,And all wherewith life's face is fair beseen;Journeying its journey bareFive suns, except of the all-kissing sunUnkissed of one;Almost I had forgotThe healing harms,And whitest witchery, a-lurk in thatAuthentic cestus of two girdling arms:And I remembered notThe subtle sanctities which dartFrom childish lips' unvalued precious brush,Nor how it makes the sudden lilies pushBetween the loosening fibres of the heart.Then, that thy little kissShould be to me all this,Let workaday wisdom blink sage lids thereat;Which towers a flight three hedgerows high, poor bat!And straightway charts me out the empyreal air.Its chart I wing not by, its canon of worthScorn not, nor reck though mine should breed it mirth:And howso thou and I may be disjoint,Yet still my falcon spirit makes her pointOver the covert whereThou, sweetest quarry, hast put in from her!
Soul, hush these sad numbers, too sad to upraiseIn hymning bright Sylvia, unlearn'd in such ways!Our mournful moods lay me away,And prank our thoughts in holiday,For syllabling to Sylvia;When all the birds on branches lave their mouths with May,To bear with us this burthenFor singing to Sylvia!
Love and love's beauty only hold their revelsIn life's familiar, penetrable levels:What of its ocean-floor?I dwell there evermore.From almost earliest youthI raised the lids o' the truth,And forced her bend on me her shrinking sight;Ever I knew me Beauty's eremite,In antre of this lowly body set,Girt with a thirsty solitude of soul.Natheless I not forgetHow I have, even as the anchorite,I too, imperishing essences that console.Under my ruined passions, fallen and sere,The wild dreams stir, like little radiant girls,Whom in the moulted plumage of the yearTheir comrades sweet have buried to the curls.Yet, though their dedicated amorist,How often do I bid my visions hist,Deaf to them, pleading all their piteous fills;Who weep, as weep the maidens of the mistClinging the necks of the unheeding hills:And their tears wash them lovelier than before,That from grief's self our sad delight grows more.Fair are the soul's uncrispèd calms, indeed,Endiapered with many a spiritual formOf blosmy-tinctured weed;But scarce itself is conscious of the storeSuckled by it, and only after stormCasts up its loosened thoughts upon the shore.To this end my deeps are stirred;And I deem well why life unsharedWas ordainèd me of yore.In pairing-time, we know, the birdKindles to its deepmost splendour,And the tenderVoice is tenderest in its throat:Were its love for ever nigh it,Never by it,It might keep a vernal note,The crocean and amethystineIn their pristineLustre linger on its coat.Therefore must my song-bower lone be,That my tone beFresh with dewy pain alway;She, who scorns my dearest care ta'en,An uncertainShadow of the sprite of May.
Love and love's beauty only hold their revelsIn life's familiar, penetrable levels:What of its ocean-floor?I dwell there evermore.From almost earliest youthI raised the lids o' the truth,And forced her bend on me her shrinking sight;Ever I knew me Beauty's eremite,In antre of this lowly body set,Girt with a thirsty solitude of soul.Natheless I not forgetHow I have, even as the anchorite,I too, imperishing essences that console.Under my ruined passions, fallen and sere,The wild dreams stir, like little radiant girls,Whom in the moulted plumage of the yearTheir comrades sweet have buried to the curls.Yet, though their dedicated amorist,How often do I bid my visions hist,Deaf to them, pleading all their piteous fills;Who weep, as weep the maidens of the mistClinging the necks of the unheeding hills:And their tears wash them lovelier than before,That from grief's self our sad delight grows more.Fair are the soul's uncrispèd calms, indeed,Endiapered with many a spiritual formOf blosmy-tinctured weed;But scarce itself is conscious of the storeSuckled by it, and only after stormCasts up its loosened thoughts upon the shore.To this end my deeps are stirred;And I deem well why life unsharedWas ordainèd me of yore.In pairing-time, we know, the birdKindles to its deepmost splendour,And the tenderVoice is tenderest in its throat:Were its love for ever nigh it,Never by it,It might keep a vernal note,The crocean and amethystineIn their pristineLustre linger on its coat.Therefore must my song-bower lone be,That my tone beFresh with dewy pain alway;She, who scorns my dearest care ta'en,An uncertainShadow of the sprite of May.
Yet is there more, whereat none guesseth, love!Upon the ending of my deadly night(Whereof thou hast not the surmise, and slightIs all that any mortal knows thereof),Thou wert to me that earnest of day's light,When, like the back of a gold-mailèd saurianHeaving its slow length from Nilotic slime,The first long gleaming fissure runs AurorianAthwart the yet dun firmament of prime.Stretched on the margin of the cruel seaWhence they had rescued me,With faint and painful pulses was I lying;Not yet discerning wellIf I had 'scaped, or were an icicle,Whose thawing is its dying.Like one who sweats before a despot's gate,Summoned by some presaging scroll of fate,And knows not whether kiss or dagger wait;And all so sickened is his countenance,The courtiers buzz, "Lo, doomed!" and look at him askance:—At Fate's dread portal thenEven so stood I, I ken,Even so stood I, between a joy and fear,And said to mine own heart, "Now if the end be here!"They say, Earth's beauty seems completestTo them that on their death-beds rest;Gentle lady! she smiles sweetestJust ere she clasps us to her breast.And I,—nowmyEarth's countenance grew bright,Did she but smile me towards that nuptial-night?But, whileas on such dubious bed I lay,One unforgotten day,As a sick child waking seesWide-eyed daisiesGazing on it from its hand,Slipped there for its dear amazes;So between thy father's kneesI sawtheestand,And through my hazesOf pain and fear thine eyes' young wonder shone.Then, as flies scatter from a carrion,Or rooks in spreading gyres like broken smokeWheel, when some sound their quietude has broke,Fled, at thy countenance, all that doubting spawn:The heart which I had questioned spoke,A cry impetuous from its depths was drawn,—"I take the omen of this face of dawn!"And with the omen to my heart cam'st thou.Even with a spray of tearsThat one light draft was fixed there for the years.And now?—The hours I tread ooze memories of thee, Sweet,Beneath my casual feet.With rainfall as the lea,The day is drenched with thee;In little exquisite surprisesBubbling deliciousness of thee arisesFrom sudden places,Under the common tracesOf my most lethargied and customed paces.
Yet is there more, whereat none guesseth, love!Upon the ending of my deadly night(Whereof thou hast not the surmise, and slightIs all that any mortal knows thereof),Thou wert to me that earnest of day's light,When, like the back of a gold-mailèd saurianHeaving its slow length from Nilotic slime,The first long gleaming fissure runs AurorianAthwart the yet dun firmament of prime.Stretched on the margin of the cruel seaWhence they had rescued me,With faint and painful pulses was I lying;Not yet discerning wellIf I had 'scaped, or were an icicle,Whose thawing is its dying.Like one who sweats before a despot's gate,Summoned by some presaging scroll of fate,And knows not whether kiss or dagger wait;And all so sickened is his countenance,The courtiers buzz, "Lo, doomed!" and look at him askance:—At Fate's dread portal thenEven so stood I, I ken,Even so stood I, between a joy and fear,And said to mine own heart, "Now if the end be here!"
They say, Earth's beauty seems completestTo them that on their death-beds rest;Gentle lady! she smiles sweetestJust ere she clasps us to her breast.And I,—nowmyEarth's countenance grew bright,Did she but smile me towards that nuptial-night?But, whileas on such dubious bed I lay,One unforgotten day,As a sick child waking seesWide-eyed daisiesGazing on it from its hand,Slipped there for its dear amazes;So between thy father's kneesI sawtheestand,And through my hazesOf pain and fear thine eyes' young wonder shone.Then, as flies scatter from a carrion,Or rooks in spreading gyres like broken smokeWheel, when some sound their quietude has broke,Fled, at thy countenance, all that doubting spawn:The heart which I had questioned spoke,A cry impetuous from its depths was drawn,—"I take the omen of this face of dawn!"And with the omen to my heart cam'st thou.Even with a spray of tearsThat one light draft was fixed there for the years.And now?—The hours I tread ooze memories of thee, Sweet,Beneath my casual feet.With rainfall as the lea,The day is drenched with thee;In little exquisite surprisesBubbling deliciousness of thee arisesFrom sudden places,Under the common tracesOf my most lethargied and customed paces.
As an Arab journeyethThrough a sand of Ayaman,Lean Thirst, lolling its cracked tongue,Lagging by his side along;And a rusty-wingèd DeathGrating its low flight before,Casting ribbèd shadows o'erThe blank desert, blank and tan:He lifts by hap toward where the morning's roots areHis weary stare,—Sees, although they plashless mutes are,Set in a silver airFountains of gelid shoots are,Making the daylight fairest fair;Sees the palm and tamarindTangle the tresses of a phantom wind;—A sight like innocence when one has sinned!A green and maiden freshness smiling there,While with unblinking glareThe tawny-hided desert crouches watching her.'Tis a vision:Yet the greeneries ElysianHe has known in tracts afar;Thus the enamouring fountains flow,Those the very palms that grow,By rare-gummed Sava, or Herbalimar.—Such a watered dream has tarriedTrembling on my desert arid;Even soIts lovely gleamingsSeemings showOf things not seemings;And I gaze,Knowing that, beyond my ways,VerilyAll theseare, for these are She.Eve no gentlier lays her cooling cheekOn the burning brow of the sick earth,Sick with death, and sick with birth,Aeon to aeon, in secular fever twirled,Than thy shadow soothes this weakAnd distempered being of mine.In all I work, my hand includeth thine;Thou rushest down in every streamWhose passion frets my spirit's deepening gorge;Unhood'st mine eyas-heart, and fliest my dream;Thou swing'st the hammers of my forge;As the innocent moon, that nothing does but shine,Moves all the labouring surges of the world.Pierce where thou wilt the springing thought in me,And there thy pictured countenance lies enfurled,As in the cut fern lies the imaged tree.This poor song that sings of thee,This fragile song, is but a curledShell outgathered from thy sea,And murmurous still of its nativity.
As an Arab journeyethThrough a sand of Ayaman,Lean Thirst, lolling its cracked tongue,Lagging by his side along;And a rusty-wingèd DeathGrating its low flight before,Casting ribbèd shadows o'erThe blank desert, blank and tan:He lifts by hap toward where the morning's roots areHis weary stare,—Sees, although they plashless mutes are,Set in a silver airFountains of gelid shoots are,Making the daylight fairest fair;Sees the palm and tamarindTangle the tresses of a phantom wind;—A sight like innocence when one has sinned!A green and maiden freshness smiling there,While with unblinking glareThe tawny-hided desert crouches watching her.'Tis a vision:Yet the greeneries ElysianHe has known in tracts afar;Thus the enamouring fountains flow,Those the very palms that grow,By rare-gummed Sava, or Herbalimar.—Such a watered dream has tarriedTrembling on my desert arid;Even soIts lovely gleamingsSeemings showOf things not seemings;And I gaze,Knowing that, beyond my ways,VerilyAll theseare, for these are She.
Eve no gentlier lays her cooling cheekOn the burning brow of the sick earth,Sick with death, and sick with birth,Aeon to aeon, in secular fever twirled,Than thy shadow soothes this weakAnd distempered being of mine.In all I work, my hand includeth thine;Thou rushest down in every streamWhose passion frets my spirit's deepening gorge;Unhood'st mine eyas-heart, and fliest my dream;Thou swing'st the hammers of my forge;As the innocent moon, that nothing does but shine,Moves all the labouring surges of the world.Pierce where thou wilt the springing thought in me,And there thy pictured countenance lies enfurled,As in the cut fern lies the imaged tree.This poor song that sings of thee,This fragile song, is but a curledShell outgathered from thy sea,And murmurous still of its nativity.
O thou most dear!Who art thy sex's complex harmonyGod-set more facilely;To thee may love draw nearWithout one blame or fear,Unchidden save by his humility:Thou Perseus' Shield! wherein I view secureThe mirrored Woman's fateful-fair allure!Whom Heaven still leaves a twofold dignity,As girlhood gentle, and as boyhood free;With whom no most diaphanous webs enwindThe barèd limbs of the rebukeless mind.Wild Dryad! all unconscious of thy tree,With which indissolublyThe tyrannous time shall one day make thee whole;Whose frank arms pass unfretted through its bole:Who wear'st thy femineityLight as entrailèd blossoms, that shalt findIt erelong silver shackles unto thee.Thou whose young sex is yet but in thy soul;—As, hoarded in the vine,Hang the gold skins of undelirious wine,As air sleeps, till it toss its limbs in breeze:—In whom the mystery which lures and sunders,Grapples and thrusts apart, endears, estranges,—The dragon to its own Hesperides—Is gated under slow-revolving changes,Manifold doors of heavy-hingèd years.So once, ere Heaven's eyes were filled with wondersTo see Laughter rise from Tears,Lay in beauty not yet mighty,Conchèd in translucencies,The antenatal Aphrodite,Caved magically under magic seas;Caved dreamlessly beneath the dreamful seas."Whose sex is in thy soul!"What think we of thy soul?Which has no parts, and cannot grow,Unfurled not from an embryo;Born of full stature, lineal to control;And yet a pigmy's yoke must undergo.Yet must keep pace and tarry, patient, kind,With its unwilling scholar, the dull, tardy mind;Must be obsequious to the body's powers,Whose low hands mete its paths, set ope and close its ways;Must do obeisance to the days,And wait the little pleasure of the hours;Yea, ripe for kingship, yet must beCaptive in statuted minority!So is all power fulfilled, as soul in thee.So still the ruler by the ruled takes rule,And wisdom weaves itself i' the loom o' the fool.The splendent sun no splendour can display,Till on gross things he dash his broken ray,From cloud and tree and flower re-tossed in prismy spray.Did not obstruction's vessel hem it in,Force were not force, would spill itself in vain;We know the Titan by his champèd chain.Stay is heat's cradle, it is rocked therein,And by check's hand is burnished into light;If hate were none, would love burn lowlier bright?God's Fair were guessed scarce but for opposite sin;Yea, and His Mercy, I do think it well,Is flashed back from the brazen gates of Hell.The heavens decreeAll power fulfil itself as soul in thee.For supreme Spirit subject was to clay,And Law from its own servants learned a law,And Light besought a lamp unto its way,And Awe was reined in awe,At one small house of Nazareth;And GolgothaSaw Breath to breathlessness resign its breath,And Life do homage for its crown to death.
O thou most dear!Who art thy sex's complex harmonyGod-set more facilely;To thee may love draw nearWithout one blame or fear,Unchidden save by his humility:Thou Perseus' Shield! wherein I view secureThe mirrored Woman's fateful-fair allure!Whom Heaven still leaves a twofold dignity,As girlhood gentle, and as boyhood free;With whom no most diaphanous webs enwindThe barèd limbs of the rebukeless mind.Wild Dryad! all unconscious of thy tree,With which indissolublyThe tyrannous time shall one day make thee whole;Whose frank arms pass unfretted through its bole:Who wear'st thy femineityLight as entrailèd blossoms, that shalt findIt erelong silver shackles unto thee.Thou whose young sex is yet but in thy soul;—As, hoarded in the vine,Hang the gold skins of undelirious wine,As air sleeps, till it toss its limbs in breeze:—In whom the mystery which lures and sunders,Grapples and thrusts apart, endears, estranges,—The dragon to its own Hesperides—Is gated under slow-revolving changes,Manifold doors of heavy-hingèd years.So once, ere Heaven's eyes were filled with wondersTo see Laughter rise from Tears,Lay in beauty not yet mighty,Conchèd in translucencies,The antenatal Aphrodite,Caved magically under magic seas;Caved dreamlessly beneath the dreamful seas.
"Whose sex is in thy soul!"What think we of thy soul?Which has no parts, and cannot grow,Unfurled not from an embryo;Born of full stature, lineal to control;And yet a pigmy's yoke must undergo.Yet must keep pace and tarry, patient, kind,With its unwilling scholar, the dull, tardy mind;Must be obsequious to the body's powers,Whose low hands mete its paths, set ope and close its ways;Must do obeisance to the days,And wait the little pleasure of the hours;Yea, ripe for kingship, yet must beCaptive in statuted minority!So is all power fulfilled, as soul in thee.So still the ruler by the ruled takes rule,And wisdom weaves itself i' the loom o' the fool.The splendent sun no splendour can display,Till on gross things he dash his broken ray,From cloud and tree and flower re-tossed in prismy spray.Did not obstruction's vessel hem it in,Force were not force, would spill itself in vain;We know the Titan by his champèd chain.Stay is heat's cradle, it is rocked therein,And by check's hand is burnished into light;If hate were none, would love burn lowlier bright?God's Fair were guessed scarce but for opposite sin;Yea, and His Mercy, I do think it well,Is flashed back from the brazen gates of Hell.The heavens decreeAll power fulfil itself as soul in thee.For supreme Spirit subject was to clay,And Law from its own servants learned a law,And Light besought a lamp unto its way,And Awe was reined in awe,At one small house of Nazareth;And GolgothaSaw Breath to breathlessness resign its breath,And Life do homage for its crown to death.
As a nymph's carven head sweet water drips,For others oozing so the cool delightWhich cannot steep her stiffened mouth of stone—Thy nescient lips repeat maternal strains.Memnonian lips!Smitten with singing from thy mother's east,And murmurous with music not their own:Nay, the lips flexile, while the mind aloneA passionless statue stands.Oh, pardon, innocent one!Pardon at thine unconscious hands!"Murmurous with music not their own," I say?And in that saying how do I missay,When from the common sandsOf poorest common speech of common dayThine accents sift the golden musics out!And ah, we poets, I misdoubt,Are little more than thou!We speak a lesson taught we know not how,And what it is that from us flowsThe hearer better than the utterer knows.And thou, bright girl, not long shalt thou repeatIdly the music from thy mother caught;Not vainly has she wrought,Not vainly from the cloudward-jetting turretOf her aerial mind, for thy weak feet,Let down the silken ladder of her thought.She bare thee with a double pain,Of the body and the spirit;Thou thy fleshly weeds hast ta'en,Thy diviner weeds inherit!The precious streams which through thy young lips rollShall leave their lovely delta in thy soul:Where sprites of so essential kindSet their paces,Surely they shall leave behindThe green tracesOf their sportance in the mind;And thou shalt, ere we well may know it,Turn that daintiness, a poet,—Elfin-ringWhere sweet fancies foot and sing.So it may be, so itshallbe,—O, take the prophecy from me!What if the old fastidious sculptor, Time,This crescent marvel of his handsCarveth all too painfully,And I who prophesy shall never see?What if the niche of its predestined rhyme,Its aching niche, too long expectant stands?Yet shall he after sore delaysOn some exultant day of daysThe white enshrouding childhood raiseFrom thy fair spirit, finished for our gaze;While we (but 'mongst that happy "we"The prophet cannot be!)While we behold with no astonishments,With that serene fulfilment of delightWherewith we view the sightWhen the stars pitch the golden tentsOf their high encampment on the plains of night.Why should amazement be our satellite?What wonder in such things?If angels have hereditary wings,If not by Salic law is handed downThe poet's crown,To thee, born in the purple of the throne,The laurel must belong:Thou, in thy mother's rightDescendant of Castilian-chrismèd kings—O Princess of the Blood of Song!
As a nymph's carven head sweet water drips,For others oozing so the cool delightWhich cannot steep her stiffened mouth of stone—Thy nescient lips repeat maternal strains.Memnonian lips!Smitten with singing from thy mother's east,And murmurous with music not their own:Nay, the lips flexile, while the mind aloneA passionless statue stands.Oh, pardon, innocent one!Pardon at thine unconscious hands!"Murmurous with music not their own," I say?And in that saying how do I missay,When from the common sandsOf poorest common speech of common dayThine accents sift the golden musics out!And ah, we poets, I misdoubt,Are little more than thou!We speak a lesson taught we know not how,And what it is that from us flowsThe hearer better than the utterer knows.
And thou, bright girl, not long shalt thou repeatIdly the music from thy mother caught;Not vainly has she wrought,Not vainly from the cloudward-jetting turretOf her aerial mind, for thy weak feet,Let down the silken ladder of her thought.She bare thee with a double pain,Of the body and the spirit;Thou thy fleshly weeds hast ta'en,Thy diviner weeds inherit!The precious streams which through thy young lips rollShall leave their lovely delta in thy soul:Where sprites of so essential kindSet their paces,Surely they shall leave behindThe green tracesOf their sportance in the mind;And thou shalt, ere we well may know it,Turn that daintiness, a poet,—Elfin-ringWhere sweet fancies foot and sing.So it may be, so itshallbe,—O, take the prophecy from me!What if the old fastidious sculptor, Time,This crescent marvel of his handsCarveth all too painfully,And I who prophesy shall never see?What if the niche of its predestined rhyme,Its aching niche, too long expectant stands?Yet shall he after sore delaysOn some exultant day of daysThe white enshrouding childhood raiseFrom thy fair spirit, finished for our gaze;While we (but 'mongst that happy "we"The prophet cannot be!)While we behold with no astonishments,With that serene fulfilment of delightWherewith we view the sightWhen the stars pitch the golden tentsOf their high encampment on the plains of night.Why should amazement be our satellite?What wonder in such things?If angels have hereditary wings,If not by Salic law is handed downThe poet's crown,To thee, born in the purple of the throne,The laurel must belong:Thou, in thy mother's rightDescendant of Castilian-chrismèd kings—O Princess of the Blood of Song!
But on a day whereof I think,One shall dip his hand to drinkIn that still water of thy soul,And its imaged tremors raceOver thy joy-troubled face,As the intervolved reflections rollFrom a shaken fountain's brink,With swift light wrinkling its alcove.From the hovering wing of LoveThe warm stain shall flit roseal on thy cheek.Then, sweet blushet! whenas he,The destined paramount of thy universe,Who has no worlds to sigh for, ruling thee,Ascends his vermeil throne of empery,One grace alone I seek.Oh! may this treasure-galleon of my verse,Fraught with its golden passion, oared with cadent rhyme,Set with a towering press of fantasies,Drop safely down the time,Leaving mine islèd self behind it far,Soon to be sunken in the abysm of seas,(As down the years the splendour voyagesFrom some long ruined and night-submergèd star),And in thy subject sovereign's havening heartAnchor the freightage of its virgin ore;Adding its wasteful moreTo his own overflowing treasury.So through his river mine shall reach thy sea,Bearing its confluent part;In his pulse mine shall thrill;And the quick heart shall quicken from the heart that's still.Now pass your ways, fair bird, and pass your ways,If you will;I have you through the days.And flit or hold you still,And perch you where you listOn what wrist,—You are mine through the times.I have caught you fast for ever in a tangle of sweet rhymes.And in your young maiden morn,You may scorn,But you must beBound and sociate to me;With this thread from out the tomb my dead hand shall tether thee!
But on a day whereof I think,One shall dip his hand to drinkIn that still water of thy soul,And its imaged tremors raceOver thy joy-troubled face,As the intervolved reflections rollFrom a shaken fountain's brink,With swift light wrinkling its alcove.From the hovering wing of LoveThe warm stain shall flit roseal on thy cheek.Then, sweet blushet! whenas he,The destined paramount of thy universe,Who has no worlds to sigh for, ruling thee,Ascends his vermeil throne of empery,One grace alone I seek.Oh! may this treasure-galleon of my verse,Fraught with its golden passion, oared with cadent rhyme,Set with a towering press of fantasies,Drop safely down the time,Leaving mine islèd self behind it far,Soon to be sunken in the abysm of seas,(As down the years the splendour voyagesFrom some long ruined and night-submergèd star),And in thy subject sovereign's havening heartAnchor the freightage of its virgin ore;Adding its wasteful moreTo his own overflowing treasury.So through his river mine shall reach thy sea,Bearing its confluent part;In his pulse mine shall thrill;And the quick heart shall quicken from the heart that's still.
Now pass your ways, fair bird, and pass your ways,If you will;I have you through the days.And flit or hold you still,And perch you where you listOn what wrist,—You are mine through the times.I have caught you fast for ever in a tangle of sweet rhymes.And in your young maiden morn,You may scorn,But you must beBound and sociate to me;With this thread from out the tomb my dead hand shall tether thee!
As lovers, banished from their lady's face,And hopeless of her grace,Fashion a ghostly sweetness in its place,Fondly adoreSome stealth-won cast attire she wore,A kerchief, or a glove:And at the lover's beckInto the glove there fleets the hand,Or at impetuous commandUp from the kerchief floats the virgin neck:So I, in very lowlihead of love,—Too shyly reverencingTo let one thought's light footfall smoothTread near the living, consecrated thing,—Treasure me thy cast youth.This outworn vesture, tenantless of thee,Hath yet my knee,For that, with show and semblance fairOf the past HerWho once the beautiful, discarded raiment bare,It cheateth me.As gale to gale drifts breathOf blossoms' death,So dropping down the years from hour to hourThis dead youth's scent is wafted me to-day:I sit, and from the fragrance dream the flower.So, then, she looked (I say);And so her front sunk downHeavy beneath the poet's iron crown:On her mouth museful sweet—(Even as the twin lips meet)Did thought and sadness greet:SighsIn those mournful eyesSo put on visibilities;As viewless ether turns, in deep on deep, to dyes.Thus, long ago,She kept her meditative paces slowThrough maiden meads, with wavèd shadow and gleamOf locks half-lifted on the winds of dream,Till love up-caught her to his chariot's glow.Yet, voluntary, happier Proserpine,This drooping flower of youth thou lettest fallI, faring in the cockshut-light, astray,Find on my 'lated way,And stoop, and gather for memorial,And lay it on my bosom, and make it mine.To this, the all of love the stars allow me,I dedicate and vow me.I reach back through the daysA trothed hand to the dead the last trump shall not raise.The water-wraith that criesFrom those eternal sorrows of thy pictured eyesEntwines and draws me down their soundless intricacies!
As lovers, banished from their lady's face,And hopeless of her grace,Fashion a ghostly sweetness in its place,Fondly adoreSome stealth-won cast attire she wore,A kerchief, or a glove:And at the lover's beckInto the glove there fleets the hand,Or at impetuous commandUp from the kerchief floats the virgin neck:
So I, in very lowlihead of love,—Too shyly reverencingTo let one thought's light footfall smoothTread near the living, consecrated thing,—Treasure me thy cast youth.This outworn vesture, tenantless of thee,Hath yet my knee,For that, with show and semblance fairOf the past HerWho once the beautiful, discarded raiment bare,It cheateth me.As gale to gale drifts breathOf blossoms' death,So dropping down the years from hour to hourThis dead youth's scent is wafted me to-day:I sit, and from the fragrance dream the flower.So, then, she looked (I say);And so her front sunk downHeavy beneath the poet's iron crown:On her mouth museful sweet—(Even as the twin lips meet)Did thought and sadness greet:SighsIn those mournful eyesSo put on visibilities;As viewless ether turns, in deep on deep, to dyes.Thus, long ago,She kept her meditative paces slowThrough maiden meads, with wavèd shadow and gleamOf locks half-lifted on the winds of dream,Till love up-caught her to his chariot's glow.Yet, voluntary, happier Proserpine,This drooping flower of youth thou lettest fallI, faring in the cockshut-light, astray,Find on my 'lated way,And stoop, and gather for memorial,And lay it on my bosom, and make it mine.To this, the all of love the stars allow me,I dedicate and vow me.I reach back through the daysA trothed hand to the dead the last trump shall not raise.The water-wraith that criesFrom those eternal sorrows of thy pictured eyesEntwines and draws me down their soundless intricacies!
Too wearily had we and songBeen left to look and left to long,Yea, song and we to long and look,Since thine acquainted feet forsookThe mountain where the Muses hymnFor Sinai and the Seraphim.Now in both the mountains' shineDress thy countenance, twice divine!From Moses and the Muses drawThe Tables of thy double Law!His rod-born fount and CastalyLet the one rock bring forth for thee,Renewing so from either springThe songs which both thy countries sing:Or we shall fear lest, heavened thus long,Thou should'st forget thy native song,And mar thy mortal melodiesWith broken stammer of the skies.Ah! let the sweet birds of the LordWith earth's waters make accord;Teach how the crucifix may beCarven from the laurel-tree,Fruit of the HesperidesBurnish take on Eden-trees,The Muses' sacred grove be wetWith the red dew of Olivet,And Sappho lay her burning browsIn white Cecilia's lap of snows!I think thy girlhood's watchers mustHave took thy folded songs on trust,And felt them, as one feels the stirOf still lightnings in the hair,When conscious hush expects the cloudTo speak the golden secret loudWhich tacit air is privy to;Flasked in the grape the wine they knew,Ere thy poet-mouth was ableFor its first young starry babble.Keep'st thou not yet that subtle grace?Yea, in this silent interspace,God sets His poems in thy face!The loom which mortal verse affords,Out of weak and mortal words,Wovest thou thy singing-weed in,To a rune of thy far Eden.Vain are all disguises! Ah,Heavenlyincognita!Thy mien bewrayeth through that wrongThe great Uranian House of Song!As the vintages of earthTaste of the sun that riped their birth,We know what never-cadent SunThy lampèd clusters throbbed upon,What plumèd feet the winepress trod;Thy wine is flavorous of God.Whatever singing-robe thou wearHas the paradisal air;And some gold feather it has keptShows what Floor it lately swept.
Too wearily had we and songBeen left to look and left to long,Yea, song and we to long and look,Since thine acquainted feet forsookThe mountain where the Muses hymnFor Sinai and the Seraphim.Now in both the mountains' shineDress thy countenance, twice divine!From Moses and the Muses drawThe Tables of thy double Law!His rod-born fount and CastalyLet the one rock bring forth for thee,Renewing so from either springThe songs which both thy countries sing:Or we shall fear lest, heavened thus long,Thou should'st forget thy native song,And mar thy mortal melodiesWith broken stammer of the skies.
Ah! let the sweet birds of the LordWith earth's waters make accord;Teach how the crucifix may beCarven from the laurel-tree,Fruit of the HesperidesBurnish take on Eden-trees,The Muses' sacred grove be wetWith the red dew of Olivet,And Sappho lay her burning browsIn white Cecilia's lap of snows!
I think thy girlhood's watchers mustHave took thy folded songs on trust,And felt them, as one feels the stirOf still lightnings in the hair,When conscious hush expects the cloudTo speak the golden secret loudWhich tacit air is privy to;Flasked in the grape the wine they knew,Ere thy poet-mouth was ableFor its first young starry babble.Keep'st thou not yet that subtle grace?Yea, in this silent interspace,God sets His poems in thy face!
The loom which mortal verse affords,Out of weak and mortal words,Wovest thou thy singing-weed in,To a rune of thy far Eden.Vain are all disguises! Ah,Heavenlyincognita!Thy mien bewrayeth through that wrongThe great Uranian House of Song!As the vintages of earthTaste of the sun that riped their birth,We know what never-cadent SunThy lampèd clusters throbbed upon,What plumèd feet the winepress trod;Thy wine is flavorous of God.Whatever singing-robe thou wearHas the paradisal air;And some gold feather it has keptShows what Floor it lately swept.