Ah, drops of gold in whitening
Burning, we know your lovely name -Daisies, that little children pull!
Like all weak things, over the
Ye do not know your power for wrong,
And much abuse your feebleness.
Daisies, that little children pull,
As ye are weak, be merciful!
O hide your eyes! they are to
Beautiful insupportably.
Or be but conscious ye are fair,
And I your loveliness could bear,
But, being fair so without art,
Ye vex the silted memories of my heart!
As a pale ghost yearning
With sundered gaze,'Mid corporal presences that
To it impalpable - such a
Sets you more distant than the morning-star.
Such wonder is on you, and amaze,
I look and marvel if I
Indeed the phantom, or are ye?
The light is on your
Which fell from me.
The fields ye still inhabit
My world-acquainted treading strays,
The country where I did commence;
And though ye shine to me so near,
So close to gross and visible sense, -Between us lies impassable year on year.
To other time and far-off
Belongs your beauty: silent thus,
Though to other naught you tell,
To me your ranks are
Of an ancient miracle.
Vain does my touch your petals graze,
I touch you not; and though ye blossom here,
Your roots are fast in alienated days.
Ye there are anchored, while Time's
Has swept me past them: your white
And infantile delights do
To look in on me like a face,
Dead and sweet, come back through dream,
With tears, because for old
It has no arms.
These hands did toy,
Children, with you, when I was child,
And in each other's eyes we smiled:
Not yours, not yours the
With which you wet mine eyes; you wear,
Ah me, the garment of the graceI wove you when I was a boy;
O mine, and not the year's your stolen Spring!
And since ye wear it,
Hide your sweet selves! I cannot bear it.
For when ye break the cloven
With your young laughter and endearment,
No blossomy carillon 'tis of
To me;
I see my slaughtered
Bursting its cerement.
