FAIREST of valleys, in this full-bloomed night, Whose air so lullingly, Whose dusk so understandingly Embraces us, and gives us more than light, O happy valley, with your poplars manned Beneath the visiting moon, And talking to the loitering moon, Vast as desire, and by an owl-call spanned, Perfection is your name; yet (foolish prayer!) Well would it be for some, And safer your dim grace for some, If nothing in your presence could compare With a far place. That shuttered lampless mill, Those white-glanced pools are like, These tangled cliffs are all too like A valley where our dream-selves tremble still. The wires and poles that cut the ridge and sky, The blackness of these groves, The secret paths of river-groves, These fits and starts of sound, identify. My feet, along this road, above that stream, Drop into marching-time, Make wild arithmetic of time -- So like this valley and that dead one seem. Resemble less, warm vale! that vale of tears; Some signs and shades forego. Cause not our very joy to go Among old valley-tombs of flesh and blood and years. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE MOON by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES THE OWL AND THE PUSSY CAT by EDWARD LEAR ODES II, 14 by QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS ASTROPHEL AND STELLA: 98 by PHILIP SIDNEY THE INDIAN'S WELCOME TO THE PILGRIM FATHERS by LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNEY UNDERWOODS: BOOK 1: 22. THE CELESTIAL SURGEON by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON THE PEN by GHALIB IBN RIBAH AL-HAJJAM |