Page:The Garden of Years.djvu/52



Dearest, to me come oftentimes at night

Pictures, wherein I find you fitly framed—

Shores of strange seas, incomparably bright,

And hill-girt landscapes, haloed with a light

Ethereal, that none hath ever named.

No ownership in these I could have claimed:

They are not of my making. Love alone

Could so blind Nature, utterly ashamed,

With beauty thus out-rivalling her own,

That seems transcendent to our mortal sight.

For I am not of those who, in their dreams,

Are wont to rank their love with simple things,

With humble flowers, babble of vapid streams,

Or that rare note of rapture that redeems

The idle gossip that the blackbird sings.

The grim old earth hath seen too many springs,

Lovers enough have trapped her charm in words:

To all her flowers the mould of usage clings,

And, to the music of her weary birds,

The burden of reiterated themes.