Lady, we would behold thee moving bright As Beatrice or Matilda 'mid the trees, Alas! thy moan was as a moan for ease And passage through cool shadows to the night: Fleeing from love, hadst thou not poet's right To slip into the universe? The seas Are fathomless to rivers drowned in these, And sorrow is secure in leafy light. Ah, had this secret touched thee, in a tomb Thou hadst not buried thy enchanting self, As happy Syrinx murmuring with the wind, Or Daphne thrilled through all her mystic bloom, From safe recess as genius or as elf, Thou hadst breathed joy in earth and in thy kind. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FROM THE IONIAN ISLANDS by RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES IN MEMORIAM A.H.H.: 30 by ALFRED TENNYSON TURN O LIBERTAD by WALT WHITMAN AN AUTUMNAL THOUGHT, 1795 by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD ON THE DISCOVERIES OF CAPTAIN LEWIS [JANUARY 14, 1807] by JOEL BARLOW UNDER A THOUSAND WORDS by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |