A press of hurried notes that run
So fleet they scarce are more than one,
Yet changingly the trills repeat
And linger ringing while they fleet,
Sweet to the quick o' the ear, and dear
To her beyond the handmaid ear,
Who sits beside our inner springs,
Too often dry for this he brings,
Which seems the very jet of earth
At sight of sun, her music's mirth,
As up he wings the spiral stair,
A song of light, and pierces air
With fountain ardor, fountain play,
To reach the shining tops of day,
And drink in everything discerned
An ecstasy to music turned,
Impelled by what his happy bill
Disperses; drinking, showering still,
Unthinking save that he may give
His voice the outlet, there to live
Renewed in endless notes of glee,
So thirsty of his voice is he,
For all to hear and all to know
That he is joy, awake, aglow,
Rings of clasping parasites.
Glooms which otherwhere appal,
Sounded here, their worths exchanged,
Urban joins with pastoral:
Little lost, save what may drop
Husk-like, and the mind preserves.
Natural overgrowths they lop,
Yet from nature neither swerves,
Trained or savage: for this cause:
Of our Earth they ply the laws,
Have in Earth their feeding root,
Mind of man and bent of brute.
Hear that song; both wild and ruled.
Hear it is it wail or mirth?
Ordered, bubbled, quite unschooled?
None, and all: it springs of Earth.
O but hear it! 'tis the mind;
Mind that with deep Earth unites,
Round the solid trunk to wind
Music have you there to feed Simplest and most soaring need. Free to wind, and in desire Winding, they to her attached
Feel the trunk a spring of fire,
Imp that dances, imp that flits,
Imp o' the demon-growing girl,
Maddest! whirl with imp o' the pits
Round you, and with them you whirl
Fast where pours the fountain-rout
We saw the swallows gathering in the sky And in the osier-isle we heard them noise. We had not to look back on summer joys, Or forward to a summer of bright dye: But in the largeness of the evening earth 5 Our spirits grew as we went side by side. The hour became her husband and my bride. Love that had robbed us so, thus blessed our dearth!
The pilgrims of the year waxed very loud In multitudinous chatterings, as the flood 10 Full brown came from the West, and like pale blood
Expanded to the upper crimson cloud. Love that had robbed us of immortal things,
This little moment mercifully gave,
Where I have seen across the twilight
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