Page:Poems, now first collected, Stedman, 1897.djvu/226

ARIEL The vow, whilst I knew not the afterweight

That poets weep,

The burthen under which one needs must bow,

The rude years envying

My voice the notes it fain would sing

For men belike to hear, as still they hear thee now.

Oh, the swift wind, the unrelenting sea!

They loved thee, yet they lured thee unaware

To be their spoil, lest alien skies to thee

Should seem more fair;

They had their will of thee, yet aye forlorn

Mourned the lithe soul's escape,

And gave the strand thy mortal shape

To be resolved in flame whereof its life was born.

Afloat on tropic waves, I yield once more

In age that heart of youth unto thy spell.

The century wanes: thy voice thrills as of yore

When first it fell.

Would that I too, so had I sung a lay

The least upborne of thine,

Had shared thy pain! Not so divine

Our light, as faith to chant the far auroral day.

(Revisited 1892) 206