Volume I Part 23 (2/2)
O Sacred Essence, lighting me this hour, How may I lightly stile thy great power?
_Echo._ Power.
Power! but of whence? under the greenwood spraye?
Or liv'st in Heaven? saye.
_Echo._ In Heavens aye.
In Heavens aye! tell, may I it obtayne By alms, by fasting, prayer,--by paine?
_Echo._ By paine Show me the paine, it shall be undergone.
I to mine end will still go on.
_Echo._ Go on.
_Britannia's Pastorals._
A VISION OF POETS.
A poet could not sleep aright, For his soul kept up too much light Under his eyelids for the night.
And thus he rose disquieted With sweet rhymes ringing through his head, And in the forest wandered
Where, sloping up the darkest glades, The moon had drawn long colonnades Upon whose floor the verdure fades
To a faint silver: pavement fair, The antique wood-nymphs scarce would dare To foot-print o'er, had such been there,
And rather sit by breathlessly, With fear in their large eyes, to see The consecrated sight. But HE--
The poet who, with spirit-kiss Familiar, had long claimed for his Whatever earthly beauty is,
Who also in his spirit bore A beauty pa.s.sing the earth's store,-- Walked calmly onward evermore.
His aimless thoughts in metre went, Like a babe's hand without intent Drawn down a seven-stringed instrument:
Nor jarred it with his humour as, With a faint stirring of the gra.s.s, An apparition fair did pa.s.s.
He might have feared another time, But all things fair and strange did chime With his thoughts then, as rhyme to rhyme.
An angel had not startled him, Alighted from heaven's burning rim To breathe from glory in the Dim;
Much less a lady riding slow Upon a palfrey white as snow, And smooth as a snow-cloud could go.
Full upon his she turned her face, ”What ho, sir poet! dost thou pace Our woods at night in ghostly chase
”Of some fair Dryad of old tales Who chants between the nightingales And over sleep by song prevails?”
She smiled; but he could see arise Her soul from far adown her eyes, Prepared as if for sacrifice.
She looked a queen who seemeth gay From royal grace alone. ”Now, nay,”
He answered, ”slumber pa.s.sed away,
”Compelled by instincts in my head That I should see to-night, instead Of a fair nymph, some fairer Dread.”
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