Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/598

580 O what wild leaps through many a fettered pass,
 * Through knotted ambuscade of root and rock,
 * How white the plunge, how dark the cloven pool!
 * Then to rich meadow-grass.
 * And pastures fed by tinkling herd and flock,
 * 'Till the wide stream receives its waters cool.

Again I long for lakes that lie between
 * High mountains, fringed about with virgin firs,

Where hand of man has never rudely been.
 * Nor plashing wheel the limpid water stirs;

There let us twain begin the world again
 * Like those of old—while tree, and trout, and deer,
 * Unto their kindred beings draw our own,
 * Till more than haunts of men,
 * Than place and pelf, more welcome these appear,
 * And better worth sheer life than we had known.

Thither, ay, thither flee, O dearest friend,
 * From walls wherein we grow so wan and old!

The liberal Earth will still her lovers lend
 * Water of life and storied sands of gold;

Though of her perfect form thou hast secured
 * Thy will, some charm shall aye thine hold defy,
 * And day by day thy passion yet shall grow.
 * Even as a bridegroom, lured
 * By the unravished secret of her eye.
 * Reads the bride's soul, yet never all can know.

And when from her embrace again thou'rt torn,
 * (Though well for her the world were thrown away!)

At thine old tasks thou'lt not be quite forlorn.
 * Remembering where is peace; and thou shalt say,

"I know where beauty has not felt the curse—
 * Where, though I age, all round me is so young
 * That in its youth my soul's youth mirrored seems;
 * Yes, in their rippling verse,
 * For all our toil, they have not falsely sung
 * Who said there still was rest beyond our dreams."