Classic Poem

Pale thoughts, like drops of trembling dew,
By sunset of my hopes shot through;
Faint longings, colourless at noon,
But turned to beryls in the moon;

Ecstatic dreams; obscure desires,
Lit up by misty opal-fires;
Intensest visions, caught between
The flight of phantoms scarcely seen;

Within this featureless array
Of year by year and day by day,
I fix them, flashing, ere they pass,
And turn them into gems — or glass!

I string them, be they stone or paste,
I string them ere they fall to waste,
And in my fond delusion fling
The circlet o'er Time's hurrying wing.

Ah! they may hang a moment there,
Caught by a feather, high in air, —
Or they may flit to earth amain
Dissolved in tears of silver rain.