LAMENT

Once, I think, a finer fire

Touched my lips, and then I sang

Half the songs of my desire:

With their splendour the world rang.

And their sweetness made me free

Of those starry ways whereby

Planets make their minstrelsy

In echoing, unending sky.

So, before that spell was broken,

Song of the wind, surge of the sea,—

Beautiful passionate things unspoken

Rose like a breaking wave in me:

Rose like a wave with curled crest

That green sunlight splinters through...

But the wave broke within my breast:

And now I am a man like you.