Once, bright Sylviola! in days not far, Once--in that nightmare-time which still doth haunt My dreams, a grim, unbidden visitant -Forlorn, and faint, and stark, I had endured through watches of the dark The abashless inquisition of each star, Yea, was the outcast mark Of all those heavenly passers' scrutiny;Stood bound and helplessly For Time to shoot his barbed minutes at me;Suffered the trampling hoof of every hour In night's slow-wheeled car;Until the tardy dawn dragged me at length From under those dread wheels; and, bled of strength, I waited the inevitable last.
Then there came past A child; like thee, a spring-flower; but a flower Fallen from the budded coronal of Spring, And through the city-streets blown withering.
She passed,--O brave, sad, lovingest, tender thing! -And of her own scant pittance did she give, That I might eat and live:
Then fled, a swift and trackless fugitive.
Therefore I kissed in thee The heart of Childhood, so divine for me;And her, through what sore ways, And what unchildish days, Borne from me now, as then, a trackless fugitive.
Therefore I kissed in thee Her, child! and innocency, And spring, and all things that have gone from me, And that shall never be;All vanished hopes, and all most hopeless bliss, Came with thee to my kiss.
And ah! so long myself had strayed afar From child, and woman, and the boon earth's green, And all wherewith life's face is fair beseen;Journeying its journey bare Five suns, except of the all-kissing sun Unkissed of one;Almost I had forgot The healing harms, And whitest witchery, a-lurk in that Authentic cestus of two girdling arms:
And I remembered not The subtle sanctities which dart From childish lips' unvalued precious brush, Nor how it makes the sudden lilies push Between the loosening fibres of the heart.
Then, that thy little kiss Should be to me all this, Let workaday wisdom blink sage lids thereat;Which towers a flight three hedgerows high, poor bat!
And straightway charts me out the empyreal air.
Its chart I wing not by, its canon of worth Scorn not, nor reck though mine should breed it mirth:
And howso thou and I may be disjoint, Yet still my falcon spirit makes her point Over the covert where Thou, sweetest quarry, hast put in from her!
(Soul, hush these sad numbers, too sad to upraise In hymning bright Sylvia, unlearn'd in such ways!
Our mournful moods lay we away, And prank our thoughts in holiday, For syllabling to Sylvia;When all the birds on branches lave their mouths with May, To bear with us this burthen, For singing to Sylvia!)9.
Then thus Spring, bounteous lady, made reply:
O lover of me and all my progeny, For grace to you I take her ever to my retinue.
Over thy form, dear child, alas! my art Cannot prevail; but mine immortalising Touch I lay upon thy heart.
Thy soul's fair shape In my unfading mantle's green I drape, And thy white mind shall rest by my devising A Gideon-fleece amid life's dusty drouth.
If Even burst yon globed yellow grape (Which is the sun to mortals' sealed sight)Against her stained mouth;
Or if white-handed light Draw thee yet dripping from the quiet pools, Still lucencies and cools, Of sleep, which all night mirror constellate dreams;Like to the sign which led the Israelite, Thy soul, through day or dark, A visible brightness on the chosen ark Of thy sweet body and pure, Shall it assure, With auspice large and tutelary gleams, Appointed solemn courts, and covenanted streams."Cease, Spring's little children, now cease your lauds to raise;That dream is past, and Sylvia, with her sweet, feat ways.
Our loved labour, laid away, Is smoothly ended; said our say, Our syllable to Sylvia.
Make sweet, you birds on branches! make sweet your mouths with May!
But borne is this burthen, Sung unto Sylvia.
