13
A song of my heart, as the sun peered o’er the sea,
Was born at morning to me:
And out of my treasure-house it chose
A melody, that arose
Of all fair sounds that I love, remembered together
In one; and I knew not whether
From waves of rustling wheat it was,
Recoveringly that pass:
Or a hum of bees in the queenly robes of the lime:
Or a descant in pairing time
Of warbling birds: or watery bells
Of rivulets in the hills:
Or whether on blazing downs a high lark’s hymn
Alone in the azure dim:
Or a sough of pines, when the midnight wold
Is solitary and cold:
Or a lapping river-ripple all day chiding
The bow of my wherry gliding
Down Thames, between his flowery shores
Re-echoing to the oars:
Or anthem notes, wherever in archèd quires
The unheeded music twires,
And, centuries by, to the stony shade
Flies following and to fade:
Or a homely prattle of children’s voices gay
’Mong garden joys at play:
Or a sundown chaunting of solemn rooks:
Or memory of my books,
Which hold the words that poets in many a tongue
To the irksome world have sung:
Or the voice, my happy lover, of thee
Now separated from me.
A ruby of fire in the burning sleep of my brain
Long hid my thought had lain,
Forgotten dreams of a thousand days
Ingathering to its rays,
The light of life in darkness tempering long;
Till now a perfect song,
A jewel of jewels it leapt above
To the coronal of my love.