I feel ye, childhood's hopes, return, With olden heats my pulses burn,-- Mine be the self-forgetting sweep, The torrent impulse swift and wild, Wherewith Taghkanic's rockborn child Dares gloriously the dangerous leap. And, in his sky-descended mood, Transmutes each drop of sluggish blood, 40 By touch of bravery's simple wand, To amethyst and diamond, Proving himself no bastard slip, But the true granite-cradled one, Nursed with the rock's primeval drip, The cloud-embracing mountain's son!
Prayer breathed in vain I no wish's sway Rebuilds the vanished yesterday; For plated wares of Sheffield stamp We gave the old Aladdin's lamp; 'Tis we are changed; ah, whither went 51 That undesigned abandonment, That wise, unquestioning content, Which could erect its microcosm Out of a weed's neglected blossom, Could call up Arthur and his peers By a low moss's clump of spears, Or, in its shingle trireme launched, Where Charles in some green inlet-branched, Could venture for the golden fleece 60 And dragon-watched Hesperides, Or, from its ripple-shattered fate, Ulysses' chances re-create? When, heralding life's every phase, There glowed a goddess-veiling haze, A plenteous, forewarning grace, Like that more tender dawn that flies Before the full moon's ample rise? Methinks thy parting glory shines Through yonder grove of singing pines; 70 At that elm-vista's end I trace Dimly thy sad leave-taking face, Eurydice! Eurydice! The tremulous leaves repeat to me Eurydice! Eurydice! No gloomier Orcus swallows thee Than the unclouded sunset's glow; Thine is at least Elysian woe; Thou hast Good's natural decay, And fadest like a star away 80 Into an atmosphere whose shine With fuller day o'ermasters thine, Entering defeat as 't were a shrine; For us,--we turn life's diary o'er To find but one word,--Nevermore.
As a twig trembles, which a bird Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent, So is my memory thrilled and stirred;-- I only know she came and went.
As clasps some lake, by gusts unriven, The blue dome's measureless content,-- So my soul held, that moment's heaven;-- I only know she came and went.
As, at one bound, our swift spring heaps The orchards full of bloom and scent, So clove her May my wintry sleeps;-- I only know she came and went.