Classic Poem

A SILVER dream of waters to the East,
A golden dream of meadows to the West,
A rosy dream of blossoms to the South,
A shadowy dream of elm-trees to the North.

The East lies charmed and stilly through the white
Midnight wherein the maythorns meet the moon;
The strewn pear-blossom and the daisies light
The long grass and the edges of the pool.

The West lies all one sloping spread of gold
Down the wide meadows to the setting sun;
A sea of buttercups, beneath whose fold
The earth lies warm and laughs with living light.

A little gust of wind may stir and pass
Among the wilderness of apple-trees;
All the deep sky above, all the deep grass
Below, is filled with bloom innumerable

Tall stands the wall of trees within the line
Of its own shadow, ever dusk and dim,
Down at its feet th' unfading laurustine,
And the blue iris weave a mist of flowers.

Four walls of dreams, and what should they uphold
But the blue dome of heaven in all its height?
And what of sunny space should they enfold
But all the open glory of the day?

And yet not so, — a measured sanctuary
Is theirs, and passing feet may enter in;
The gates of it are seen as men go by,
And some have dwelling there, and some have life.

They do indeed encompass and enclose
A very pleasure-house of cedar shade,
With gleam of lawns and crimson tulip-glows,
And flutter of white robes and youthful feet.

But whereof are they boundaries, and for whom?
Are they from inside or from outside set?
Spread from some conscious centre in their room,
Or built round guarded treasure hidden there?

The jewel lighting up the inmost shrine,
The soul that outward weaves its sanctuary,
Both are the same, and both seem half-divine
In the throbbing air mixed by the nightingales.

What name, what form? — A lamp? — a hearth of home? —
A poet's heart? — a rose of man's desire?
Or of a full-blown hour not twice to come,
The crowning, still more radiant and more fair?

Here set beyond the chance of time and change,
Awhile at least to sense and sight revealed,
That which makes all the sunlight rapture-strange,
That which makes all the moonlight magical.

More white than folded lilies of the East,
More golden than the meadows of the West,
More rosy than the orchards of the South,
More shadowy than the dark dream of the North.