TO A “CANTERBURY BELL”!
Rare lovely Bloom! dear sweet simplicity,
Nodding beneath the Heavens thy delicate lure!
Thine exquisite sculpture doth upcall on me
The realms of wonder, visionary and pure!
I gaze on thee, thou waxen delicate,
Until the World and all its strutting pelf
Fade wanly hence, and an ecstatic scene
Of fauns and goblins, decked in legend state,
Steps faintly forth, to bear my dizzy self
Within their tripping circles, nought between.
There, ’mid the hedgerow’s tortuous garlands, fair
And blithe thou droop’st thy lovely brow; and thence
Thy zephyry fragrance, delicate and rare,
Steals with a dewy breath upon my sense.
Eager I seek thee out then, to behold
Thy bell upon the vesper breezes toll
Pomp’s knelling requiem with solemn nod,
Thou purest Joy, ’mid teeming fold on fold
Of prodigal waywardness, is this thy dole,
Simplicity that boasts no touch save God?
The Honeysuckle’s heavily-laden breath
Floats on the balmy winds in languid fumes;
The Nightshade breathes its careless boon of death
To lips that tamper lightly with its blooms;
The Meadow-sweet with carved tiaras deft;
The Poppy-petal’s crumpled charactery;
The tangly ramified Convolvulus;—
All of their several virtues are bereft
At the soft touch of thy Simplicity,
Simplicity of peace voluptuous.
Oh, exquisite marvel, whither shall I turn
To sate the thirstings thou hast spoken up?
My soul with vast inquietude doth burn.
Rare drafts are there within thy luscious cup
That I may put my lips upon its brim,
And, sloughing off Earth’s smutch and soilure, quaff
Deeply the secrets of eternal ease?
Or sway’st thou merely as a transient whim,
Idle, capricious, windward-driven chaff?
Yet surely, surely thou art more than these!
Or very All, or very Nothing: why
Hast thou upspoken thirst for what is not
If thou and I shall clutch the gloom, and die,
Life but a tangled boon, a vicious blot,
Spun by the sightless Powers? Nay, shalt not thou,
Elate, clad in eternal Vestiture,
Greet me upon the eternal Marge? Yea, then,
Shall not I, ageless Wisdom on my brow,
Spell out thy charm occult? Sweet Mystery pure,
So shall I search thy secrets yet again!