Ay, though we clomb each faint-flushed peak of vision, Nought but our own sad faces we divined: Thy radiant way still laughed us to derision, And still revengeful Echo proved unkind; And oft our faithless hearts half feared to find Thy cold corse in some dark mist-drenched ravine Where the white foam flashed headlong to the sea: How should we find thee, spirits deaf and blind Even to the things which we had heard and seen? Eyes that could see no more The old light on sea and shore, What should they hope or fear to find? They found not thee;
For thou wast ever alien to our skies, A wistful stray of radiance on this earth, A changeling with deep memories in thine eyes Mistily gazing thro' our loud-voiced mirth To some fair land beyond the gates of birth; Yet as a star thro' clouds, thou still didst shed Through our dark world thy lovelier, rarer glow; Time, like a picture of but little worth, Before thy young hand lifelessly outspread, At one light stroke from thee Gleamed with Eternity; Thou gav'st the master's touch, and we--we did not know.
Not though we gazed from heaven o'er Ilion Dreaming on earth below, mistily crowned With towering memories, and beyond her shone The wine-dark seas Achilles heard resound! Only, and after many days, we found Dabbled with dew, at border of a wood Bedded in hyacinths, open and a-glow Thy Homer's Iliad.... Dryad tears had drowned The rough Greek type and, as with honey or blood, One crocus with crushed gold Stained the great page that told Of gods that sighed their loves on Ida, long ago.
See--_for a couch to their ambrosial limbs Even as their golden load of splendour presses The fragrant thyme, a billowing cloud up-swims Of springing flowers beneath their deep caresses, Hyacinth, lotus, crocus, wildernesses Of bloom_ ... but clouds of sunlight and of dew Dropping rich balm, round the dark pine-woods curled That the warm wonder of their in-woven tresses, And all the secret blisses that they knew, Where beauty kisses truth In heaven's deep heart of youth, Might still be hidden, as thou art, from the heartless world.
Even as we found thy book, below these rocks Perchance that strange great eagle's feather lay, When Ganymede, from feeding of his flocks On Ida, vanished thro' the morning grey: Stranger it seemed, if thou couldst cast away Those golden musics as a thing of nought, A dream for which no longer thou hadst need! Ah, was it here then that the break of day Brought thee the substance for the shadow, taught Thy soul a swifter road To ease it of its load And watch this world of shadows as a dream recede?