An Island

My dream is of an island-placeWhich distant seas keep lonely,A little island on whose faceThe stars are watchers only:Those bright still stars! they need not seemBrighter or stiller in my dream.

An island full of hills and dells,All rumpled and unevenWith green recesses, sudden swells,And odorous valleys drivenSo deep and straight that always thereThe wind is cradled to soft air.

Hills running up to heaven for lightThrough woods that half-way ran,As if the wild earth mimicked rightThe wilder heart of man:Only it shall be greener farAnd gladder than hearts ever are.

More like, perhaps, that mountain pieceOf Dante's paradise,Disrupt to an hundred hills like these,In falling from the skies;Bringing within it, all the rootsOf heavenly trees and flowers and fruits:

For--saving where the grey rocks strikeTheir javelins up the azure,Or where deep fissures miser-likeHoard up some fountain treasure,(And e'en in them, stoop down and hear,Leaf sounds with water in your ear,--)

The place is all awave with trees,Limes, myrtles purple-beaded,Acacias having drunk the leesOf the night-dew, faint-headed,And wan grey olive-woods which seemThe fittest foliage for a dream.

Trees, trees on all sides! they combineTheir plumy shades to throw,Through whose clear fruit and blossom fineWhene'er the sun may go,The ground beneath he deeply stains,As passing through cathedral panes.

But little needs this earth of oursThat shining from above her,When many Pleiades of flowers(Not one lost) star her over,The rays of their unnumbered huesBeing all refracted by the dews.

Wide-petalled plants that boldly drinkThe Amreeta of the sky,Shut bells that dull with rapture sink,And lolling buds, half shy;I cannot count them, but betweenIs room for grass and mosses green,

And brooks, that glass in different strengthsAll colours in disorder,Or, gathering up their silver lengthsBeside their winding border,Sleep, haunted through the slumber hidden,By lilies white as dreams in Eden.

Nor think each arched tree with eachToo closely interlacesTo admit of vistas out of reach,And broad moon-lighted placesUpon whose sward the antlered deerMay view their double image clear.

For all this island's creature-full,(Kept happy not by halves)Mild cows, that at the vine-wreaths pull,Then low back at their calvesWith tender lowings, to approveThe warm mouths milking them for love.

Free gamesome horses, antelopes,And harmless leaping leopards,And buffaloes upon the slopes,And sheep unruled by shepherds:Hares, lizards, hedgehogs, badgers, mice,Snakes, squirrels, frogs, and butterflies.

And birds that live there in a crowd,Horned owls, rapt nightingales,Larks bold with heaven, and peacocks proud,Self-sphered in those grand tails;All creatures glad and safe, I deemNo guns nor springes in my dream!

The island's edges are a-wingWith trees that overbranchThe sea with song-birds welcomingThe curlews to green change;And doves from half-closed lids espyThe red and purple fish go by.

One dove is answering in trustThe water every minute,Thinking so soft a murmur mustHave her mate's cooing in it:So softly doth earth's beauty roundInfuse itself in ocean's sound.

My sanguine soul bounds forwarderTo meet the bounding waves;Beside them straightway I repair,To live within the caves:And near me two or three may dwellWhom dreams fantastic please as well.

Long winding caverns, glittering farInto a crystal distance!Through clefts of which shall many a starShine clear without resistance,And carry down its rays the smellOf flowers above invisible.

I said that two or three might chooseTheir dwelling near mine own:Those who would change man's voice and use,For Nature's way and tone--Man's veering heart and careless eyes,For Nature's steadfast sympathies.

Ourselves, to meet her faithfulness,Shall play a faithful part;Her beautiful shall ne'er addressThe monstrous at our heart:Her musical shall ever touchSomething within us also such.

Yet shall she not our mistress live,As doth the moon of ocean,Though gently as the moon she giveOur thoughts a light and motion:More like a harp of many lays,Moving its master while he plays.

No sod in all that island dothYawn open for the dead;No wind hath borne a traitor's oath;No earth, a mourner's tread;We cannot say by stream or shade,"I suffered here,--was here betrayed."

Our only "farewell" we shall laughTo shifting cloud or hour,And use our only epitaphTo some bud turned a flower:Our only tears shall serve to proveExcess in pleasure or in love.

Our fancies shall their plumage catchFrom fairest island-birds,Whose eggs let young ones out at hatch,Born singing! then our wordsUnconsciously shall take the dyesOf those prodigious fantasies.

Yea, soon, no consonant unsmoothOur smile-tuned lips shall reach;Sounds sweet as Hellas spake in youthShall glide into our speech:(What music, certes, can you findAs soft as voices which are kind?)

And often, by the joy withoutAnd in us, overcome,We, through our musing, shall let floatSuch poems,--sitting dumb,--As Pindar might have writ if heHad tended sheep in Arcady;

Or AEschylus--the pleasant fieldsHe died in, longer knowing;Or Homer, had men's sins and shieldsBeen lost in Meles flowing;Or Poet Plato, had the undimUnsetting Godlight broke on him.

Choose me the cave most worthy choice,To make a place for prayer,And I will choose a praying voiceTo pour our spirits there:How silverly the echoes run!Thy will be done,--thy will be done.

Gently yet strangely uttered words!They lift me from my dream;The island fadeth with its swardsThat did no more than seem:The streams are dry, no sun could find--The fruits are fallen, without wind.

So oft the doing of God's willOur foolish wills undoeth!And yet what idle dream breaks ill,Which morning-light subdueth?And who would murmur and misdoubt,When God's great sunrise finds him out?