Sing of the wonders of their woodland ways,
Before the weird earth-hunger of these days,
When there was rippling mirth,
When justice was on Earth,
And light and grandeur of the Golden Age;
When never a heart was sad,
When all from king to herdsman had
A penny for a wage.
Ah, that old time has faded to a dream—
The moon’s fair face is broken in the stream;
Yet shout and carol on, O bird, and let
The exiled race not utterly forget;
Publish thy revelation on the lawns—
Sing ever in the dark ethereal dawns;
Sometime, in some sweet year,
These stormy souls, these men of Earth may hear.
But hark again,
From the secret glen,
That voice of rapture and ethereal youth
Now laden with despair.
Forbear, O bird, forbear:
Is life not terrible enough forsooth?
Cease, cease the mystic song—
No more, no more, the passion and the pain:
It wakes my life to fret against the chain;
It makes me think of all the agèd wrong—
Of joy and the end of joy and the end of all—
Of souls on Earth, and souls beyond recall.
Ah, ah, that voice again!
It makes me think of all these restless men,
Called into time—their progress and their goal;
And now, oh now, it sends into my soul
Dreams of a love that might have been for me—
That might have been—and now can never be.
Tell me no more of these—
Tell me of trancèd trees;
(The ghosts, the memories, in pity spare)
Show me the leafy home of the wild bees;
Show me the snowy summits dim in air;
Tell me of things afar
In valleys silent under moon and star:
Dim hollows hushed with night,
The lofty cedars misty in the light,
Wild clusters of the vine,
Wild odors of the pine,
The eagle’s eyrie lifted to the moon—
High places where on quiet afternoon
A shadow swiftens by, a thrilling scream
Startles the cliff, and dies across the woodland to a dream.
Ha, now
He springs from the bough,
It flickers—he is lost!
Out of the copse he sprang;
This is the floating briar where he tossed:
The leaves are yet atremble where he sang.
Here a long vista opens—look!
This is the way he took,
Through the pale poplars by the pond:
Hark! he is shouting in the field beyond.
Ho, there he goes
Through the alder close!
He leaves me here behind him in his flight,
And yet my heart goes with him out of sight!
What whispered spell
Of Faëry calls me on from dell to dell?
I hear the voice—it wanders in a dream—
Now in the grove, now on the hill, now on the fading stream.
Lead on—you know the way—
Lead on to Arcady,
O’er fields asleep; by river bank abrim;
Down leafy ways, dewy and cool and dim;
By dripping rocks, dark dwellings of the gnome,
Where hurrying waters dash their crests to foam.
I follow where you lead,
Down winding paths, across the flowery mead,
Down silent hollows where the woodbine blows,
Up water-courses scented by the rose.
I follow the wandering voice—
I follow, I rejoice,
I fade away into the Age of Gold—
We two together lost in forest old.—
O ferny and thymy paths, O fields of Aidenn,
Canyons and cliffs by mortal feet untrod!
O souls that weary and are heavy laden,
Here is the peace of God!
Lo! now the clamoring hours are on the way:
Faintly the pine tops redden in the ray;
From vale to vale fleet-footed rumors run,
With sudden apprehension of the sun;
A light wind stirs
The filmy tops of delicate dim firs,
And on the river border blows,
Breaking the shy bud softly to a rose.
Sing out, O throstle, sing:
I follow on, my king:
Lead me forever through the crimson dawn—
Till the world ends, lead me on!
Ho there! he shouts again—he sways—and now,
Upspringing from the bough,
Flashing a glint of dew upon the ground,
Without a sound
He drops into a valley and is gone!
Joy of the Morning
I hear you, little bird,
Shouting aswing above the broken wall.
Shout louder yet: no song can tell it all.
Sing to my soul in the deep still wood:
’Tis wonderful beyond the wildest word:
I’d tell it, too, if I could.
Oft when the white, still dawn
Lifted the skies and pushed the hills apart,
I’ve felt it like a glory in my heart—
(The world’s mysterious stir)
But had no throat like yours, my bird,
Nor such a listener.