Too wearily had we and
Been left to look and left to long,
Yea, song and we to long and look,
Since thine acquainted feet
The mountain where the Muses
For Sinai and the Seraphim.
Now in both the mountains'
Dress thy countenance, twice divine!
From Moses and the Muses
The Tables of thy double Law!
His rod-born fount and
Let the one rock bring forth for thee,
Renewing so from either
The 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
With broken stammer of the skies.
Ah! let the sweet birds of the
With earth's waters make accord;
Teach how the crucifix may
Carven from the laurel-tree,
Fruit of the
Burnish take on Eden-trees,
The Muses' sacred grove be
With the red dew of Olivet,
And Sappho lay her burning
In white Cecilia's lap of snows!
Thy childhood must have felt the
Of too divine o'ershadowings;
Its odorous heart have been a
That in darkness did unbosom,
Those fire-flies of God to invite,
Burning spirits, which by
Bear upon their laden
To such hearts impregnating.
For flowers that night-wings
Mock down the stars' unsteady eyes,
And with a happy, sleepless
Gaze the moon out of countenance.
I think thy girlhood's watchers
Have took thy folded songs on trust,
And felt them, as one feels the
Of still lightnings in the hair,
When conscious hush expects the
To speak the golden secret
Which tacit air is privy to;
Flasked in the grape the wine they knew,
Ere thy poet-mouth was
For 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,
Heavenly incognita!
Thy mien bewrayeth through that
The great Uranian House of Song!
As the vintages of
Taste of the sun that riped their birth,
We know what never cadent
Thy lamped clusters throbbed upon,
What plumed feet the winepress trod;
Thy wine is flavorous of God.
Whatever singing-robe thou
Has the Paradisal air;
And some gold feather it has
Shows what Floor it lately swept!
