The Vision

    Of that dear vale where you and I have lain
    Scanning the mysteries of life and death
    I dreamed, though how impassable the space
    Of time between the present and the past!
    This was the vision that possessed my mind;
    I thought the weird and gusty days of March
    Had eased themselves in melody and peace.
    Pale lights, swift shadows, lucent stalks, clear streams,
    Cool, rosy eves behind the penciled mesh
    Of hazel thickets, and the huge feathered boughs
    Of walnut trees stretched singing to the blast;
    And the first pleasantries of sheep and kine;
    The cautioned twitterings of hidden birds;
    The flight of geese among the scattered clouds;
    Night's weeping stars and all the pageantries
    Of awakened life had blossomed into May,
    Whilst she with trailing violets in her hair
    Blew music from the stops of watery stems,
    And swept the grasses with her viewless robes,
    Which dreaming men thought voices, dreaming still.
    Now as I lay in vision by the stream
    That flows amidst our well beloved vale,
    I looked throughout the vista stretched between
    Two ranging hills; one meadowed rich in grass;
    The other wooded, thick and quite obscure
    With overgrowth, rank in the luxury
    Of all wild places, but ever growing sparse
    Of trees or saplings on the sudden slope
    That met the grassy level of the vale; -
    But still within the shadow of those woods,
    Which sprinkled all beneath with fragrant dew,
    There grew all flowers, which tempted little paths
    Between them, up and on into the wood.
    Here, as the sun had left his midday peak
    The incommunicable blue of heaven blent
    With his fierce splendor, filling all the air
    With softened glory, while the pasturage
    Trembled with color of the poppy blooms
    Shook by the steps of the swift-sandaled wind.
    Nor any sound beside disturbed the dream
    Of Silence slumbering on the drowsy flowers.
    Then as I looked upon the widest space
    Of open meadow where the sunlight fell
    In veils of tempered radiance, I saw
    The form of one who had escaped the care
    And equal dullness of our common day.
    For like a bright mist rising from the earth
    He made appearance, growing more distinct
    Until I saw the stole, likewise the lyre
    Grasped by the fingers of the modeled hand.
    Yea, I did see the glory of his hair
    Against the deep green bay-leaves filleting
    The ungathered locks. And so throughout the vale
    His figure stood distinct and his own shade
    Was the sole shadow. Deeming this approach
    Augur of good, as if in hidden ways
    Of loveliness the gods do still appear
    The counselors of men, and even where
    Wonder and meditation wooed us oft,
    I cried, "Apollo" - and his form dissolved,
    As if the nymphs of echo, who took up
    The voice and bore it to the hollow wood,
    By that same flight had startled the great god
    To vanishment. And thereupon I woke
    And disarrayed the figment of my thought.
    For of the very air, magic with hues,
    Blent with the distant objects, I had formed
    The splendid apparition, and so knew
    It was, alas! a dream within a dream!