Under an oak-tree in a woodland, where

The dreaming Spring had dropped it from her hair,

I found a flower, through which I seemed to gaze

Beyond the world and see what no man dare

Behold and live—the myths of bygone days—

Diana and Endymion; and the bare,

Slim beauty of the boy whom Echo wooed;

And Hyacinthus, whom Apollo dewed

With love and death; and Daphne, ever fair;

And that reed-slender girl whom Pan pursued.

I stood and gazed and through it seemed to see

The Dryad dancing by the forest tree,

Her hair wild blown: the Faun, with listening ear,

Deep in the boscage, kneeling on one knee,

Watching the wandered Oread draw near,

Her wild heart beating like a honey-bee

What other flower, that, fashioned like a star,

Draws its frail life from earth and braves the war

Of all the heavens, can suggest the dreams

That this suggests? in which no trace of mar

Or soil exists: where stainless innocence seems

Enshrined; and where, beyond our vision far,

That inaccessible beauty, which the heart

Worships as truth and holiness and art,

Is symbolized; wherein embodied are

The things that make the soul's immortal part.