Page:Preludes, Meynell, 1875.djvu/86

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TO A LOST MELODY.

Ditties of no tone.

Keats.

Thou art not dead, O sweet lost melody,
Sung beyond memory,
When golden to the winds this world of ours
Waved wild with boundless flowers;
Sung in some past when wildernesses were,—
Not dead, not dead, lost air!
Yet in the ages long where lurkest thou,
And what soul knows thee now?
Wert thou not given to sweeten every wind
From that o'erburdened mind
That bore thee through the young world, and that tongue
By which thou first wert sung?
Was not thy holy choir the endless dome,
And nature all thy home?
Did not the warm gale clasp thee to his breast,

Lulling thy storms to rest?