Not yet to breathing man, not to his song,
Not to his comforted heart; nor to the long
Close-cultivated lands beneath the hill.
Summer was gently with them still.
But on the Apennine mustered the cloud;
The grappling storm shut down. Aloft, aloud,
Ruled secret tempest one long day and night,
Until another morning's light.
O tender mountain-tops and delicate,
Where summer-long the westering sunlight sate!
Within that fastness darkened from the sun,
What solitary things were done?
The clouds let go, they rose, they winged away;
Snow-white the altered mountains faced the day,
As saints who keep their counsel sealed and fast,
Their anguish over-past.
THE COURTS
A FIGURE OF THE EPIPHANY
The poet's imageries are noble ways,
Approaches to a plot, an open shrine.
Their splendours, colours, avenues, arrays,
Their courts that run with wine;
Beautiful similes, "fair and flagrant things,"
Enriched, enamouring,—raptures, metaphors
Enhancing life, are paths for pilgrim kings
Made free of golden doors.
And yet the open heavenward plot, with dew,
Ultimate poetry, enclosed, enskied
(Albeit such ceremonies lead thereto)
Stands on the yonder side.
Plain, behind oracles, it is; and past
All symbols, simple; perfect, heavenly-wild,
The song some loaded poets reach at last—
The kings that found a Child.