Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems including a Reprint of Echoes from Theocritus: By Wilfred Austin Gill: With a Critical Estimate of the Sonnets by the late John Addington Symonds |
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 | Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems |  |
IV
A WOODLAND STREAM, III
I cannot tell what spirit-forms are free
To suck the secret of this green delight:
I only feel it was not made for me—
Not mine to use it with a spirit's right.
I am as other men—poor aliens we
From Nature's paradise in Heaven's despite,
Who only glimpse its charm with blinded sight,
And may not enter, having lost the key.
Yet surely I were more than man, or less,
Could I allure my hungry soul away
From such a spot, with such a power to bless,
And win not e'en what birds and fishes may:
At least I have the right of brutishness,
Who am in part an animal as they.
| Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems | |