With splendour of a silver day, A frosted night had opened May: And on that plumed and armoured night, As one close temple hove our wood,
Its border leafage virgin white. Remote down air an owl hallooed. The black twig dropped without a twirl; The bud in jewelled grasp was nipped;
The brown leaf cracked a scorching curl; A crystal off the green leaf slipped. Across the tracks of rimy tan, Some busy thread at whiles would shoot;
A limping minnow-rillet ran, To hang upon an icy foot. In this shrill hush of quietude, The ear conceived a severing cry.
Almost it let the sound elude, When chuckles three, a warble shy, From hazels of the garden came, Near by the crimson-windowed farm.
They laid the trance on breath and frame, A prelude of the passion-charm. Then soon was heard, not sooner heard Than answered, doubled, trebled, more,
Voice of an Eden in the bird Renewing with his pipe of four The sob: a troubled Eden, rich In throb of heart: unnumbered throats
Flung upward at a fountain's pitch, The fervour of the four long notes, That on the fountain's pool subside, Exult and ruffle and upspring:
Endless the crossing multiplied Of silver and of golden string. There chimed a bubbled underbrew With witch-wild spray of vocal dew.
It seemed a single harper swept Our wild wood's inner chords and waked A spirit that for yearning ached Ere men desired and joyed or wept.
Or now a legion ravishing Musician rivals did unite In love of sweetness high to sing The subtle song that rivals light;
From breast of earth to breast of sky: And they were secret, they were nigh: A hand the magic might disperse; The magic swung my universe.
Yet sharpened breath forbade to dream, Where all was visionary gleam; Where Seasons, as with cymbals, clashed; And feelings, passing joy and woe,
Churned, gurgled, spouted, interflashed, Nor either was the one we know: Nor pregnant of the heart contained In us were they, that griefless plained,
That plaining soared; and through the heart Struck to one note the wide apart: - A passion surgent from despair; A paining bliss in fervid cold;
Off the last vital edge of air, Leap heavenward of the lofty-souled, For rapture of a wine of tears; As had a star among the spheres
Caught up our earth to some mid-height Of double life to ear and sight, She giving voice to thought that shines Keen-brilliant of her deepest mines;
While steely drips the rillet clinked, And hoar with crust the cowslip swelled. Then was the lyre of earth beheld, Then heard by me: it holds me linked;
Across the years to dead-ebb shores I stand on, my blood-thrill restores. But would I conjure into me Those issue notes, I must review
What serious breath the woodland drew; The low throb of expectancy; How the white mother-muteness pressed On leaf and meadow-herb; how shook,
Nigh speech of mouth, the sparkle-crest Seen spinning on the bracken-crook.
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