University of Virginia Library

“Time,” said the Eagle, “will be idly spent
In thankless labour for invention seeking
Where there is naught to seek or to invent:
Naught but emotion into utterance breaking
From the full heart wherein its power was pent.
This comes and goes: but never comes it sought.
And when it comes, it brings its own expression:
Now check'd and struggling with tumultuous thought,
Now pour'd melodious forth in full procession,
And now again to burning rapture wrought,
But always true. For this no rule holds good,
And no receipt for this avails thee aught.
But as when, smooth along the lucid flood,
Reflected flocks of snowy swans come swimming,
So swim the mystic forms without endeavour
Into the soul; and round about them, rimming
Each radiant image, restless circles quiver.
Swift close the flashing furrows unawares
Along their liquid paths. For flowing ever
Is that unfathom'd element which bears
The floating bark by Fancy built. And never,
O never, may'st thou bind the labour'd bond
Of finite speech on forms by Fancy seen!
For, soon as seen, they fade. Far, far beyond
Thine eager grasp the sweet shapes glide serene,
Ere yet from off each fleeting forehead fair
Hath Passion pluckt the visionary veil
That, robing, best reveals, their beauty rare.
Divine Desire, that pants upon their trail,
Himself is follow'd by divine Despair.
So, mingled in the verse, doth melt away
The vagrant vision which the verse in vain
Throbs to record; and in the poet's lay
Naught but his own emotion doth remain.
Safe in the circle of the senses five,
For those that seek no more, contentment lies.
Rest in the real. Reality will give
To all thy questions confident replies.
Follow the knowable. Hold fast the known.
Nor seek thy missing sense of unknown things
Which to the senses render response none,
Being too far beyond their questionings.
But ply not thou the poet's untaught art.
To feel it—this, this only, is to know it.
The vision that is hidden in his heart
The poet can reveal but to the poet.”