The Vision of Sir Launfal eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 124 pages of information about The Vision of Sir Launfal.

The Vision of Sir Launfal eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 124 pages of information about The Vision of Sir Launfal.

    By night, far yonder, I surmise
      An ampler world than clips my ken, 10
    Where the great stars of happier skies
      Commingle nobler fates of men.

    I look and long, then haste me home,
      Still master of my secret rare;
    Once tried, the path would end in Rome, 15
      But now it leads me everywhere.

    Forever to the new it guides,
      From former good, old overmuch;
    What Nature for her poets hides,
      ’Tis wiser to divine than clutch. 20

    The bird I list hath never come
      Within the scope of mortal ear;
    My prying step would make him dumb,
      And the fair tree, his shelter, sear.

    Behind the hill, behind the sky, 25
      Behind my inmost thought, he sings;
    No feet avail; to hear it nigh,
      The song itself must lend the wings.

    Sing on, sweet bird, close hid, and raise
      Those angel stairways in my brain, 30
    That climb from these low-vaulted days
      To spacious sunshines far from pain.

    Sing when thou wilt, enchantment fleet,
      I leave thy covert haunt untrod,
    And envy Science not her feat 35
      To make a twice-told tale of God.

    They said the fairies tript no more,
      And long ago that Pan was dead;
    ’Twas but that fools preferred to bore
      Earth’s rind inch-deep for truth instead. 40

    Pan leaps and pipes all summer long,
      The fairies dance each full-mooned night,
    Would we but doff our lenses strong,
      And trust our wiser eyes’ delight.

    City of Elf-land, just without 45
      Our seeing, marvel ever new,
    Glimpsed in fair weather, a sweet doubt
      Sketched-in, mirage-like, on the blue.

    I build thee in yon sunset cloud,
      Whose edge allures to climb the height; 50
    I hear thy drowned bells, inly-loud,
      From still pools dusk with dreams of night.

    Thy gates are shut to hardiest will,
      Thy countersign of long-lost speech,—­
    Those fountained courts, those chambers still, 55
      Fronting Time’s far East, who shall reach?

    I know not, and will never pry,
      But trust our human heart for all;
    Wonders that from the seeker fly
      Into an open sense may fall. 60

    Hide in thine own soul, and surprise
      The password of the unwary elves;
    Seek it, thou canst not bribe their spies;
      Unsought, they whisper it themselves.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Vision of Sir Launfal from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.