PROEM.

Wine-warm winds that sigh and sing,

Led me, wrapped in many moods,

Thro’ the green sonorous woods

Of belated Spring;

Till I came where, glad with heat,

Waste and wild the fields were strewn,

Olden as the olden moon,

At my weary feet;

Wild and white with starry bloom,

One far milky-way that dashed,

When some mad wind o'er it flashed,

Into billowy foam.

I, bewildered, gazed around,

As one on whose heavy dreams

Comes a sudden burst of beams,

Like a mighty sound.

If the grander flowers I sought,

But these berry-blooms to you,

Evanescent as their dew,

Only these I brought.