IN THE WOODS WITH SHELLEY 125
Linger, dew, linger and gem
All the fresh flowers in the garland ;
Blossom, leaf, bud and green stem
Flash with your light to some far land,
Where men shall wonder if you be not a
newly-be~- starland.
Ah! the sweet scents of the woods!
Ah! the sweet sounds of the heaven !
Sights of impetuous floods,
Foam like the daisy at even,
Folding o’er passionate gold petals that sun-
rise had riven !
See, like my life is the stream
Now its desire is grown quiet ;
Life was a passionate dream
Once, when light fancy ran riot,
Now, ere youth fades, flows in peace past
woody bank and green eyot.
Highest, white heather and rock,
Mountain and pine, with young laughter,
Breezes that murmur and mock
Duller delights to come after,
Wild as a swallow that dives whither the sea
wind would waft her.
Lower, an ocean of flowers,
Trees that are warmer and leafier,
Starrier, sunnier hours
Spurning the stain of all grief here,
Bringing a quiet delight to us, beyond our
belief, here.
Lastly, the uttermost sea,
Starred with the flakes of spray sunlit,
Blue as its caverns that be
Crystal, resplendent, yet unlit ;
So like a mother receives the kiss of the
dainty-lip runlet.
Ifere the green moss is my seat,
Beech is a canopy o’er me,
Calm and:‘content the retreat ;
Man, my worst foe, cannot bore me:
Life is a closed book behind—Shelley an
open before me.
Shelley’s own birds are above
Close to me (why should they fear me ?)
May I believe it—that love
Brings his bright spirit so near me
That, should I whisper one word—Shelley’s
swift spirit would hear me.
Heaven is not very far ;
Soul unto soul may be calling
When a swift meteor star
Through the quick vista is falling.
Loose but your soul—shall its wings find the
white way so appalling?
Heaven, as I understand,
Nearer than some folk would make it ;
God—should you stretch out a hand,
Who can be quicker to take it?
Then you have pacted an oath—judge you
if He will forsake it !
I have had hope in the spring --
Trust that the God who has given
Flowers, and the thrushes that sing
Dawnwards all night, and at even
Year after year, will be true now we are
speaking of heaven.
Breezes carcss me and creep
Over the world to admire it ;
sweet air shall sigh me to sleep,
Softly my lips shall respire it,
Lying half-closed: with a kiss ready for who
shall desire it.
A VISION UPON USIIBAa
[eRe in the wild Caucasian night,
The sleepless years
Scem to pass by in garments white,
Made white with tears,
A pageant of intolerable light
Across the sombre sphcres,
And, mingling with the tumult of the morn,
Mecthought a single rose of blood was born,
1A mountain in the Caucasus.
mi Crowley
never visited this district.