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THREE CHARACTERS, by                    
First Line: In an old garden, long and long ago
Last Line: In their own heart her face.


In an old garden, long and long ago,
There sat a man and watched the beasts at play;
Full marvellous were they,
Of every colour that the eye doth know,
Both dark and fair;
And each intent
On his own will in his own element.
Cruel and soft and wild;
Untaught of fear and unbeguiled
By human touch,
They all were there and all were innocent.
Long time he watched them for they pleased him much,
And every one the same.
Surely -- he said -- t'would be a pleasant thing
To know this kingdom where I sit, a king;
Now will I give them each a name;
And whatsoever he the beasts did call,
That were they, one and all,
Nor wist
That in the garden sat a scientist. . . .
And ages passed, and this first man was gone;
And then another came.
He came with music; a rude harp was slung
Across his shoulder; he had on
A crown of little leaves.
The song he sung
Was like the wind that grieves
Along the shore --
Was soft as love.
What ailed the sea
That fled before
That minstrelsy?
What ailed the rivers to turn back
Their ancient flood,
The steadfast hills to move;
The trees and all their forest brood
To follow in his track?
Now has the serpent left her young;
The parded lion left his prey;
So changed are they. . .
For such is their captivity
Who hear the song of evil and of good;
Who heed the music of morality.
The third was different from these:
He had no certain names to call
The movement and the magic of the earth;
He had no will to change its loveliness;
No way to love it less.
The trees,
That seemed not trees, with all
The wildness of their hair unbound,
Were not more rooted in the ground
Than he; and of his blood and birth
Was the bright multitude
Of forms in stream and wood.
For this he wore a fawn skin, and his rod
Was wound around
With ivy and his head was crowned
With purple clusters, and he trod
In ways all drunk with beauty -- like a god.
Though he was but a poet, it may be:
Such facile, sweet divinity
Is theirs who dream in nature's deep embrace,
And see
In their own heart her face.





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