To Daisies

Ah, drops of gold in whitening flame

Burning, we know your lovely name -

Daisies, that little children pull!

Like all weak things, over the strong

Ye do not know your power for wrong,

And much abuse your feebleness.

Daisies, that little children pull,

As ye are weak, be merciful!

O hide your eyes! they are to me

Beautiful insupportably.

Or be but conscious ye are fair,

And I your loveliness could bear,

But, being fair so without art,

Ye vex the silted memories of my heart!

As a pale ghost yearning strays

With sundered gaze,

'Mid corporal presences that are

To it impalpable - such a bar

Sets you more distant than the morning-star.

Such wonder is on you, and amaze,

I look and marvel if I be

Indeed the phantom, or are ye?

The light is on your innocence

Which fell from me.

The fields ye still inhabit whence

My world-acquainted treading strays,

The country where I did commence;

And though ye shine to me so near,

So close to gross and visible sense, -

Between us lies impassable year on year.

To other time and far-off place

Belongs your beauty: silent thus,

Though to other naught you tell,

To me your ranks are rumorous

Of an ancient miracle.

Vain does my touch your petals graze,

I touch you not; and though ye blossom here,

Your roots are fast in alienated days.

Ye there are anchored, while Time's stream

Has swept me past them: your white ways

And infantile delights do seem

To look in on me like a face,

Dead and sweet, come back through dream,

With tears, because for old embrace

It has no arms.

These hands did toy,

Children, with you, when I was child,

And in each other's eyes we smiled:

Not yours, not yours the grievous-fair

Apparelling

With which you wet mine eyes; you wear,

Ah me, the garment of the grace

I wove you when I was a boy;

O mine, and not the year's your stolen Spring!

And since ye wear it,

Hide your sweet selves!  I cannot bear it.

For when ye break the cloven earth

With your young laughter and endearment,

No blossomy carillon 'tis of mirth

To me; I see my slaughtered joy

Bursting its cerement.