Chapter IV

For, all around me, upon field and hill,
Enchantment lies as of mysterious flutes;
As if the music of a god's goodwill
Had taken on material attributes
In blooms, like chords; and in the water-gleam,
That runs its silvery scales on every stream;
In sunbeam bars, up which the butterfly,
A golden note, vibrates then flutters on--
Inaudible tunes, blown on the pipes of Pan,
That have assumed a visible entity,
And drugged the air with beauty so, a Faun,
Behold, I seem, and am no more a man.

DISCOVERY

What is it now that I shall seek
Where woods dip downward, in the hills;
A mossy nook, a ferny creek,
And May among the daffodils.

Or in the valley's vistaed glow,
Past rocks of terraced trumpet-vines,
Shall I behold her coming slow,
Sweet May, among the columbines?

With red-bud cheeks and bluet eyes,
Big eyes, the homes of happiness,
To meet me with the old surprise,
Her hoiden hair all bonnetless.

Who waits for me, where, note for note,
The birds make glad the forest trees?
A dogwood blossom at her throat,
My May among th' anemones.

As sweetheart breezes kiss the blooms,
And dewdrops drink the moonlight's gleam,
My soul shall kiss her lips' perfumes,
And drink the magic of her dreams.

THE OLD SPRING

I

Under rocks whereon the rose
Like a strip of morning glows;
Where the azure-throated newt
Drowses on the twisted root;
And the brown bees, humming homeward,
Stop to suck the honey-dew;
Fern and leaf-hid, gleaming gloamward,
Drips the wildwood spring I knew,
Drips the spring my boyhood knew.

II

Myrrh and music everywhere
Haunt its cascades;--like the hair
That a naiad tosses cool,
Swimming strangely beautiful,
With white fragrance for her bosom,
For her mouth a breath of song:--
Under leaf and branch and blossom
Flows the woodland spring along,
Sparkling, singing flows along.