"Ah! I knew not in the old time half the sweetness that doth linger
Round the simple things of Nature which the proud heart passes by,
Now I see there's not a wildflower but doth point with warning finger,
To the unobservant passer, truths of immortality.
"Bright May, thou shalt be my beadsman, and thy golden tresses drooping
Round thee shall be all the vesture that my loving soul shall seek;
Thou shalt be a meet confessor for a lowly poet stooping
To breathe forth his secret failings, and read pardon on thy cheek.
"Bright May! I have been a strayer from the narrow path that wanders
Through this world to lead the traveller to a glad eternity,
I have been an erring madman, for the blind heart never ponders
Till the fancied light it follows lead it from felicity.
"I have been most false and perjured, false to all a poet's duty,
Even whilst my heart was boasting proudly of a poet's creed,
I have loudly claimed the title of a worshipper of beauty,
Yet could gaze upon a flower till I thought it but a weed.
"Yes! I dwelt amid the woodlands with bright streamlets singing round me,
Sunny dells, moss-paven alleys, and cool shades to ramble in;
All was happy, all was peaceful, yet e'en there ambition found me,
Charm'd me forth into the rough world to engulph me in its din.
"Yes! I wearied of the woodlands, of the streams and sunny places
Where I lay me in the summer to dream all the noontide o'er,
Like the child of a sweet mother lapt within her fond embraces
Drawing fitness from her beauty to lisp forth in poet's lore.
But the time is drawing nigh; now, when my soul sublimed from folly
Shall see all things in their trueness, with no sun-veil drawn between;
Know that glory is mere weakness and that aim alone is holy
Which, wrought out in life with patience, fits man for a higher scene.