Читать книгу Collected Poems: Volume Two - Alfred Noyes - Страница 44

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It is my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes— So was it sung one golden hour Among the woodbine wreaths; And yet, though wet with living dew, The song seemed far more sweet than true.

Blind creatures of the sun and air

I dreamed it but a dream

That, like Narcissus, would confer

With self in every stream,

And to the leaves and boughs impart

The tremors of a human heart.

To-day a golden pinion stirred

The world's Bethesda pool,

And I believed the song I heard

Nor put my heart to school;

And through the rainbows of the dream

I saw the gates of Eden gleam.

The rain had ceased. The great hills rolled

In silence to the deep:

The gorse in waves of green and gold

Perfumed their lonely sleep;

And, at my feet, one elfin flower

Drooped, blind with glories of the shower.

I stooped—a giant from the sky—

Above its piteous shield,

And, suddenly, the dream went by,

And there—was heaven revealed!

I stooped to pluck it; but my hand

Paused, mid-way, o'er its fairyland.

Not of mine own was that strange voice,

"Pluck—tear a star from heaven!"

Mine only was the awful choice

To scoff and be forgiven

Or hear the very grass I trod

Whispering the gentle thoughts of God.

I know not if the hill-flower's place

Beneath that mighty sky,

Its lonely and aspiring grace,

Its beauty born to die,

Touched me, I know it seemed to be

Cherished by all Eternity.

Man, doomed to crush at every stride

A hundred lives like this

Which by their weakness were allied,

If by naught else, to his,

Can only for a flash discern

What passion through the whole doth yearn.

Not into words can I distil

The pity or the pain

Which hallowing all that lonely hill

Cried out "Refrain, refrain,"

Then breathed from earth and sky and sea,

"Herein you did it unto Me."

Somewhile that hill was heaven's own breast,

The flower its joy and grief,

Hugged close and fostered and caressed

In every brief bright leaf:

And, ere I went thro' sun and dew,

I leant and gently touched it, too.