TO A DOVE

Thy mellow passioning amid the leaves,

That tremble dimly in the summer dusk,

Falls sad along the oatland's sallow sheaves

And haunts above the runnel's voice a-husk

With plashy willow and bold-wading reed.

The solitude's dim spell it breaketh not,

But softer mourns unto me from the mead

Than airs that in the wood intoning start,

Or breath of silences in dells begot

To soothe some grief-wan soul with sin a-smart.

A votaress art thou of Simplicity,

Who hath one fane — the heaven above thy nest;

One incense — love; one stealing litany

Of peace from rivered vale and upland crest.

Yea, thou art Hers, who makes prayer of the breeze,

Hope of the cool upwelling from sweet soils,

Faith of the darkening distance, charities

Of vesper scents, and of the glow-worm's throb

Joy whose first leaping rends the care-wound coils

That would earth of its heavenliness rob.

But few, how few her worshippers! For we

Cast at a myriad shrines our souls, to rise

Beliefless, unanointed, bound not free,

To sacrificing a vain sacrifice!

Let thy lone innocence then quickly null

Within our veins doubt-led and wrong desire —

Or drugging knowledge that but fills o'erfull

Of feverous mystery the days we drain!

Be thy warm notes like an Orphean lyre

To lead us to life's Arcady again!