One is a slow and melancholy maid; I know riot if she cometh from the skies Or from the sleepy gulfs, but she will rise Often before me in the twilight shade,
Holding a bunch of poppies and a blade Of springing wheat: prostrate my body lies Before her on the turf, the while she ties A fillet of the weed about my head;
And in the gaps of sleep I seem to hear A gentle rustle like the stir of corn, And words like odours thronging to my ear: “Lie still, beloved — still until the morn;
Lie still with me upon this rolling sphere — Still till the judgment; thou art faint and worn.” The other meets me in the public throng; Her hair streams backward from her loose attire;
She hath a trumpet and an eye of fire; She points me downward, steadily and long:— “There is thy grave — arise, my son, be strong! Hands are upon thy crown — awake, aspire
To immortality; heed not the lyre Of the Enchantress, nor her poppy-song, But in the stillness of the summer calm Tremble for what is Godlike in thy being.
Listen a while, and thou shall hear the psalm Of victory sung by creatures past thy seeing; And from far battle-fields there comes the neighing Of dreadful onset, though the air is balm.”
Maid with the poppies, must I let thee go? Alas, I may not; thou art likewise dear! I am but human, and thou hast a tear When she hath nought but splendour, and the glow
Of a wild energy that mocks the flow Of the poor sympathies which keep us here: Lay past thy poppies, and come twice as near, And I will teach thee, and thou too shalt grow;
And thou shalt walk with me in open day Through the rough thoroughfares with quiet grace; And the wild-visaged maid shall lead the way, Timing her footsteps to a gentler pace
As her great orbs turn ever on thy face, Drinking in draughts of loving help alway.
Cookies on Poetry Cove