Classic Poem

Why does my fancy soon forsake
All that is perfect to the eye,
The ruffled silver of the lake,
The silent silver of the sky,
Its single star that is so shy,
That trembles like a golden fawn
Strayed from the blue and shadowy wood
Of night upon the twilight lawn:
Why is the heart so soon withdrawn?
Even on earth's last lovely brood
Of primroses it hardly dwells,
Though myriads, a tender mist,
Warm the pale green of chilly dells,
The aftershine of amethyst,
The glades of midnight overhead,
Where browse the flocks the fawn has led,
All glimmering, till they are laid
Folden in light which is their shade —
Did ever earth from its first prime
Move to a lovelier dance than this?
But yet I cannot keep in chime.
Swift as the whirling dervish is
My heart floats on a swifter tide.
As one upon a hurrying stream
Sees towers and forests as in dream
Drift by him upon either side,
So do I see, and then I fly
From these to that they prophesy.

It is not that my heart is cold
To beauty, for my pulses beat
As bloom and odour jet their sweet
From tiny fountains in the mould,
And many rainbow trumpets blow;
But still my heart divines from these
How near are the Hesperides,
How rich to have this overflow
From sacred earth through common clay:
And all my being yearns to run,
To tread the meadows of the sun
And bask in that enchanted day.

The suns that rise, the suns that set,
Time's tidal waves of blue and gold
That roll from far ethereal seas,
Hill-land and forest, starlit pool,
Are images we soon forget,
And swiftest when most beautiful.
For when most beautiful we feel
That there is something they reveal,
Some lordlier being of their kind;
And beauty only meaneth this
And to the symbol we are blind.
The gifts that fortune brings, the kiss,
The lovely life, the heart unveiled,
Are images of heights unscaled.
And we adore while to our thought
Being with symbol seems enwrought,
Yet if we would the rapture stay,
The spirit is the open door
Through which the prisoner steals away.
Maybe there is a native shore
For us, for it, where we may find
A beauty stedfast to the mind,
Joy that will not so lightly stray
To join the maskers in the dance,
Eternity with Time at play.