V
If I had seen what hourly happiness
In this my world your being could ordain,
How then should I have trysted with distress
And misery the cringing friend of pain?
If I had seen beyond the looming years
Your shadow, grief had haunted me in vain,
For what are cataracts of human tears
Beside the boundless laughter of the main?
O barren days bygone! Now every field
Wakes clamorous with dawning life conceived,
So has the magic universe revealed
Whole happiness to one who half believed—
Whole happiness, and in my heart concealed
Wide wonder at the sacrament received.
VI
“Great men and happy years,” you say from these
Your knowledge came, and your diviner powers
More thrilling than the honey-womb of flowers
Or the bright star-foam of the Pleiades.
So, did you learn the droning lore of bees
From some be-medalled soldier? Did you meet
Madonna-hearted statesmen in the street,
Or bishops, babbling of the opal seas?
O poor deceiver, conscript joys belong
To you as homage. For the happy years
Bear fruit to-day, and blossom like the flowers
That breathe of summertime in after hours.
For you were loyal to a creed of Song
Nor ever stooped to misery and tears.
VII
Would I could throw my stuttering self away
And shrine the soul wherein all wonders beat,
Would I were you, for one brief holiday
The whole shy universe before my feet.
O happiness, to know joy’s secret mine,
To hold adoring ministers in fee,
Narcissus-like to bless the Serpentine
And with the stars outdance Terpsichore.