It mounts athwart the windy hill
Through sallow slopes of upland bare,
And Fancy climbs with foot-fall still
Its narrowing curves that end in air.
5By day, a warmer-hearted blue
Stoops softly to that topmost swell;
Its thread-like windings seem a clew
To gracious climes where all is well.
By night, far yonder, I surmise
10An ampler world than clips my ken,
Where the great stars of happier skies
Commingle nobler fates of men.
I look and long, then haste me home,
Still master of my secret rare;
15Once tried, the path would end in Rome,
But now it leads me everywhere.
Forever to the new it guides,
From former good, old overmuch;
What Nature for her poets hides,
20'Tis wiser to divine than clutch.
The bird I list hath never come
Within the scope of mortal ear;
My prying step would make him dumb,
And the fair tree, his shelter, sear.
25Behind the hill, behind the sky,
Behind my inmost thought, he sings;
No feet avail; to hear it nigh,
The song itself must lend the wings.
Sing on, sweet bird, close hid, and raise
30Those angel stairways in my brain,
That climb from these low-vaulted days
To spacious sunshines far from pain.
Sing when thou wilt, enchantment fleet,
I leave thy covert haunt untrod,
35And envy Science not her feat
To make a twice-told tale of God.
They said the fairies tript no more,
And long ago that Pan was dead;
'Twas but that fools preferred to bore
40Earth's rind inch-deep for truth instead.