Page:Poems Barrett.djvu/171

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A Vision of Poets.


  "O Sacred Essence, lighting me this hour,
  How may I lightly stile thy great power?
Echo.Power.
  Power! but of whence? under the greenwood spraye?
  Or liv'st in Heaven? saye.
Echo.In Heavens aye.
  In Heavens aye! tell, may I it obtayne
  By alms, by fasting, prayer,—by paine?
Echo.By paine.
  Show me the paine, it shall be undergone:
  I to mine end will still go on.
Echo.Go on."
Britannia's Pastorals.

A poet could not sleep aright,
For his soul kept up too much light
Under his eyelids for the night:

And thus he rose disquieted,
With sweet rhymes ringing through his head,
And in the forest wandered;

Where, sloping up the darkest glades,
The moon had drawn long colonnades,
Upon whose floor the verdure fades

To a faint silver: pavement fair,
The antique Dryads scarce would dare
To footprint o'er, if such were there,

But rather sit by breathlessly,
With tears in their large eyes to see
The consecrated sight. But he—