Poems Real and Ideal :: :: University of Virginia Library

This I would do, start fresh with thee,—through sweet France dreaming,
Or marking wealth of blue or purple night-time gleaming
In fragrant Italy.
Start fresh—quite fresh,—I could; and watch the moonlight chasing
The sea-bird's pure white wings with laughter and love amazing
Across new azure leagues of Southern sea.

338

Yes: I could be a boy again.—I could to-morrow
Banish all thoughts of old and sombre-hearted sorrow
And enter life anew.
Wonder at all the skies, as if the ethereal azure
Never, not once before, gave eyes and spirit pleasure:
Marvel, as if new-born, at ocean's blue.

I could start quite afresh,—young, passionate, boy-hearted.
God gave the poets youth for ever when he parted,
Weary, with all his own.
And when God tired of love, he gave the poets power
To enter love's bright fields, and gather love's white flower,
With all the force that from himself had flown.

So I could be quite young. The poppies in the meadows;
The tender flower of blue that 'mid the cornstalks' shadows
Rests, and it shines between;

339

The iris in the pond; the water-flags, and follies
Of the blue-capped titmice amid the yews and hollies;
The dusky pinewoods' depths of darkening green;

The splendour of the sky; the wonder of great cities;
The glory of the moon that soars above and pities
The town's dim smoky roar;
The summer waves that plash upon the shingly gravel;
The wintry white large waves whose threatening swift crests travel
Out from wild ocean to the trembling shore;

The robin on the rail with plaintive soft note piping;
The crimson bars of cloud the lilac background striping
When sunset gilds the air:—
All this could be as new to me as when God saw it
For the first time, without one human pang to flaw it,
When first creation shone supremely fair.

340

For the whole world is ever virgin to the poet.
The thinker's brain he brings,—but the boy's heart to know it;
The youth's heart to adore:—
Sweet as first love to him the world for ever gleameth,
And in her deep sweet eyes his answering deep heart dreameth,
Full of wild worship,—yes, for evermore.