STANZAS

Thought is an unseen net wherein our mind

Is taken and vainly struggles to be free:

Words, that should loose our spirit, do but bind

New fetters on our hoped-for liberty:

And action bears us onward like a stream

Past fabulous shores, scarce seen in our swift course;

Glorious — and yet its headlong currents seem

Backwaters of some nobler purer force.

There are slow curves, more subtle far than thought,

That stoop to carry the grace of a girl's breast;

And hanging flowers, so exquisitely wrought

In airy metal, that they seem possessed

Of souls; and there are distant hills that lift

The shoulder of a goddess towards the light;

And arrowy trees, sudden and sharp and swift,

Piercing the spirit deeply with delight.

Would I might make these miracles my own!

Like a pure angel, thinking colour and form,

Hardening to rage in a flame of chiselled stone,

Spilling my love like sunlight, golden and warm

On noonday flowers, speaking the song of birds

Among the branches, whispering the fall of rain,

Beyond all thought, past action and past words,

I would live in beauty, free from self and pain.