To sing, as thou didst in full throated ease,
Sweeter than thine oft-envied nightingale,
And with thy singing waken hill and dale
Until the many harpstrings of the trees
Murmured in strange and old antiphonies;
To wander at thy will into the vale
Where sleeps Endymion, and tell the tale
Of Dian's nymphs or Pan's dear dryades:
Was it, in sooth, too great a price to pay —
The heart-ache and the passion and the tears
With which God mixed for thee life's cup of gold?
Against the sadness of thy lot I hold
The joy of him who sees and feels and hears
Earth's splendour, fulness, music, night and day.