And as I went
Through golden forests in a golden land,
Where Magic waved her wand
And dimmed the air with dreams my boyhood knew,
Enchantment met me; and again she bent
Her face to mine, and smiled with eyes of blue,
And kissed me on the mouth and bade me heed
Old tales again from books no man may read.
III
And at her word
The wood became transfigured; and, behold!
With hair of wavy gold
A presence walked there; and its beauty was
The beauty not of Earth: and then I heard
Within my heart vague voices, murmurous
And multitudinous as leaves that sow
The firmament when winds of autumn blow.
IV
And I perceived
The voices were but one voice made of sighs,
That sorrowed in this wise:
“I am the child-soul that grew up and died,
The child-soul of the world that once believed,
Believed in me, but long ago denied;
The Faery Faith it needs no more to-day,
The folk-lore Beauty long since passed away.”
THE NIGHT-WIND
I
I have heard the wind on a winter’s night,
When the snow-cold moon looked icily through
My window’s flickering firelight,
Where the frost his witchery drew:
I have heard the wind on a winter’s night,
Wandering ways that were frozen white,
Wail in my chimney-flue:
And its voice was the voice,—so it seemed to me,—
The voice of the world’s vast misery.
II
I have heard the wind on a night of spring,
When the leaves unclasped their girdles of gold,
And the bird on the bough sang slumbering,
In the lilac’s fragrant fold: