  Who that hath ever shot a shaft at heaven Whether of wonder, praise or humble prayer, But hath not straight received his answer given, And been made strong with comforting, aware Of strength and beauty for his purpose meant, Whether it were a lark’s song or a scent That wanders on the quavering paths of the air? The sweetest of all birds, that fed my slumber With music through the thought-exalting night, Among forgotten fancies without number Transfigured sorrow to a heart’s delight. And uninvited memories, that stole With haunting trouble to their slavÈd soul Were turned to wondrous joys and aspects bright. So intimate a part are we of Nature That even to call us best part doth us wrong, Being her mind, the meaning of her feature, To whom her varied forms wholly belong. So that what were not ours were worthless quite, And thus to me it happened on that night To be the love and joy of this bird’s song. As it came leaping on the dark unguarded Silence of midnight to the door of the ear: And finding the warm passages unwarded Sped up the spiral stair, and mounted near To where in unseen rooms the delicate sprite That never sleeps sat watching through the night Weaving the time in fancies strange and drear. Nor was it that the heavenly music fluttered The quick electric atoms; rarer far, The melody this bird of passion uttered Coloured the firmament where all thoughts are: As in the characters a poet’s hand Has traced, there lie—for poets understand— Heart-thrills that shoot through blackness like a star. And so, as summer eve will sweetly soften The wayward thoughts of all who forth may fare, To me there came the spirit who haunts not often My heart for sorrow of the sadness there: But now her face was lit with joy, her eyes Were eager messengers of her surprise That she was quit of her profound despair. Did sad despite unto her merry grace, As gaily she came forward with a gesture As gamesome as the childhood in her face, That I had seen so long downcast and sad, Robbed of the happy birthright which she had, Which earth may steal away but not replace. There is no sorrow like the slow heart-searing, When phantoms bred of earth spring up between Two loving hearts, who grew to their endearing, When all their pushing tendrils yet were green: No time-struck ruin is so sad to see As youth’s disease: than thus, O Love, to be, ’Twere better for thy honour not to have been. Had I not seen the servitude of folly, The mÍnute-measuring of days and nights, With superstition preaching melancholy And pleasure counterfeiting her own rights; Afraid to turn again and look behind, Lest truth should flame and overwhelm the mind, Fanning her red regret of old delights. The mimicry of woe that is a trouble To them that practise it, but which to those To whom the joy is owed makes sorrow double Seeing the debtor destitute that owes. The tinselling of cruel bars, to blind The cagÈd bird to think the hand is kind Which liberty denies and food bestows. From which I hurried as a beast from burning, Nor cared in flying where my terror led; Only beyond recall and past returning, Nor now repent if then too far I fled.— So long, dear life, as in my flesh thou reign’st I will sin with thee rather than against, Let me die living rather than live dead. But neither is there human pleasure rarer Than love’s renewal after long disdain, Nor any touching tale for telling fairer Than that wherein lost lovers meet again: Such joy must happy souls beyond the grave, If once again they meet, in Heaven have, Without which all the joys of Heaven were vain. ’Twas even thus she came and in my dreaming, My pleasure was not less than Heaven’s may be: The spiritual and unearthly seeming So far outdid a touched reality: As glances sent in love do more than tell What words can never phrase or utter well, And which ’tis shame and blindness not to see. But now the joy was mine, for gentle pity Of her who wearily lived long alone With mopes and mummers in a sensuous city That held no passion equal to her own, For gentle pity, I say, constrained me well, As pains those separated souls they tell Prepare for Heaven, and mould their hearts of stone. But their sweet ecstasy is all abiding And cannot pall with time nor tire nor fade, Nor any more can day of death, dividing Their earthborn loves, those happy haunts invade. But joy for ever—if that joy compare With my best joy on earth, may I be there! Though even from that I shrink and am afraid. Now when I woke and thought upon this vision, Wherein she smiled on me and I on her, I could not quite be clear of all misprision Who of us most was changed: or if it were The song I heard not—sleeping as I heard— That shaped our empty dream, while sang the bird Regardless of his fond interpreter. |
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