LUCKY and pretty Light! smiling on me All this blue rustling morning, may your grace Call up my joy in every place Which by your rays I see: My joy! A starveling prayer and cold; There shall be joy a millionfold. Let your child-gleam visit each twinkling steep Where still a Corydon loves his fine sheep, Or, still, true labourer, grumbling As he goes, rattling and rumbling, The white mill shows the valley how to work, Hurling his great arms round; but far away The water-mill, as staunch a patriarch, Has plunged afresh into the early day. The bold stream thunders through the weir And music fills the angler's ear. Some last soft misty swathes, dear Hour, dispel From lawns that lie beside a sleepier stream, Till all the fragrant scheme Of peaceful men who know their flowers as well As bees do burns rich for the conquering bees. Then over lattices Of seagreen glass, and gables full of nests, The proud eye rests On the arrowy spire, now like a soaring flame, As though, God's word being Light, it answered with the same. My dream, I'll catch you yet; my Light, Illude no more; light speaks with sight, And dream Light surely alone discloses Beside these spires and rills and roses Melodies as if they grew Clear as poplars on the view! Dream? I am @3here@1 and I am @3now,@1 But @3there@1 and @3then@1 bedew my brow; The twofold air is jewelled with the singing Of far-off youth, old Whitsun bells are ringing; This sunbeam's pearl, this trilling breeze contrive To give me back those distant dead alive! |