 | The poet, the fool and the faeries |  |
123
DRAGONFLIES
You, who put off the water-worm, to rise,
Reborn, with wings; who change, without ado,
Your larval bodies to invade our skies,
What Merlin magic disenchanted you,
And made you beautiful for mortal eyes?
Reborn, with wings; who change, without ado,
Your larval bodies to invade our skies,
What Merlin magic disenchanted you,
And made you beautiful for mortal eyes?
Shuttles of summer, where the lilies sway
Their languid leaves and sleepy pods and flowers,
Weaving your colored threads into the day,
Knitting with light the tapestry of hours,
You come and go in needle-like array.
Their languid leaves and sleepy pods and flowers,
Weaving your colored threads into the day,
Knitting with light the tapestry of hours,
You come and go in needle-like array.
Now on a blade of grass, or pod, as still
As some thin shred of heaven, motionless,
A point, an azure streak, you poise, until
You seem a figment Summer would express
But fails through utter indolence of will.
As some thin shred of heaven, motionless,
A point, an azure streak, you poise, until
You seem a figment Summer would express
But fails through utter indolence of will.
Then suddenly, as if the air had news,
And flashed intelligence of faery things,
You vibrate into motion, instant hues,
Searching the sunlight with diaphanous wings,
Gathering together many filmy clues.
And flashed intelligence of faery things,
You vibrate into motion, instant hues,
Searching the sunlight with diaphanous wings,
Gathering together many filmy clues.
124
Clues, that the subject mind, in part, divines,
Invisible but evidenced through these:—
The mote, that goldens down the sun's long lines,
The web, that trails its silver to the breeze,
And the slow musk some fragile flower untwines.
Invisible but evidenced through these:—
The mote, that goldens down the sun's long lines,
The web, that trails its silver to the breeze,
And the slow musk some fragile flower untwines.
Could we but follow! and the threads unwind,
Haply through them again we might perceive
That Land of Faery, youth left far behind,
Lost in the wonder-world of Make-Believe,
Where Childhood dwells and Happiness-of-Mind.
Haply through them again we might perceive
That Land of Faery, youth left far behind,
Lost in the wonder-world of Make-Believe,
Where Childhood dwells and Happiness-of-Mind.
And, undelayed, far, far beyond this field
And quiet water, on the dream-road trail,
Come on that realm of fancy, soul-concealed,
Where we should find, as in the faery tale,
The cap through which all Elfland is revealed.
And quiet water, on the dream-road trail,
Come on that realm of fancy, soul-concealed,
Where we should find, as in the faery tale,
The cap through which all Elfland is revealed.
| The poet, the fool and the faeries | |