Page:Hymns of the Marshes.djvu/41

 Oh, what if a sound should be made!

Oh, what if a bound should be laid

To this bow-and-string tension of beauty and silence a-spring,—

To the bend of beauty the bow, or the hold of silence the string!

I fear me, I fear me yon dome of diaphanous gleam

Will break as a bubble o'er-blown in a dream,—

Yon dome of too-tenuous tissues of space and of night,

Over-weighted with stars, over-freighted with light,

Over-sated with beauty and silence, will seem

But a bubble that broke in a dream,

If a bound of degree to this grace be laid,

Or a sound or a motion made.

But no: it is made: list! somewhere,—mystery, where?

In the leaves? in the air?

In my heart? is a motion made;

'Tis a motion of dawn, like a flicker of shade on shade.