O THOU whose fancies from afar are brought; Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel, And fittest to unutterable thought The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol, Thou fairy voyager! that dost float In such clear water, that thy boat May rather seem To brood on air than on an earthly stream -- Suspended in a stream as clear as sky, Where earth and heaven do make one imagery; O blessed vision! happy child! Thou art so exquisitely wild, I think of thee with many fears For what may be thy lot in future years. I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest, Lord of thy house and hospitality; And Grief, uneasy lover, never rest But when she sat within the touch of thee. O too industrious folly! O vain and causeless melancholy ! Nature will either end thee quite; Or, lengthening out thy season of delight, Preserve for thee, by individual right, A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks. What hast thou to do with sorrow, Or the injuries of to-morrow? Thou art a dew-drop, which the morn brings forth, Ill fitted to sustain unkindly shocks, Or to be trailed along the soiling earth; A gem that glitters while it lives, And no forewarning gives, But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife, Slips in a moment out of life. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MY YOUTH by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES MEZZO CAMMIN by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW CA' THE YOWES TO THE KNOWES' by ISOBEL (ISABEL) PAGAN CELIA'S HOMECOMING by AGNES MARY F. ROBINSON THE TWO APRIL MORNINGS by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH POEM FOR PICTURE: TO A PORTRAIT BY EDWARD STEICHEN (RACHMANINOFF) by FRANK ANKENBRAND JR. |