Poems (Loveman)/To P. G.
TO P. G.
There lies a nook in the imminence of night,Flooded with fire and dew, all lost delight,Things that the iron world chose to forget,There in the pendulous azure dusk are set;And grief that brimm'd itself to joy and wroughtHappiness in the aching vast of thought,Faces that glimmering quiet acquiesce,Knowing the end as barren bitterness,Anguishing all, yet by the ebbed stars,Still'd to the peace that neither makes nor mars,This paradise, you see, is none of mine,I rail at all things, human and divine,Half faun, half satyr—shyer than those broodsThat flit above your moonlit mountain woods;Confess me neither, dub me what you will,Ixion sleepless, Tartarus baleless, nill!I miss your ministry, your patient laws,Impelling purposes and divine saws,Gusty in none but golden everywhere,Autumn that spurs the subduance of the year.Wiser than misty Spring whose violet,Plays Ariel to the delicate woods and wet, Or Summer, poppy-bound with sultry fire,Ruining glitter, wandering feet that tire.You, who would fathom better things in me,Than the dull moan of bowed humanity,Who glimpse the beauty that my aims would strive,The winged spirit and the darkling gyve,Unutterable loveliness and love,Life trembling lest her bliss of wonder move,And in the veined marble of my rhyme,See the unwinnowing temper hued by time;I take my cue, and in your equal trust,Shapen a roseal splendour from the dust.—July 31, 1911.