XXVI. As I entered, mosses hushing Clasped within the linden's root, Took me in a chair of silence very rare and absolute. XXVII. All the floor was paved with glory, Greenly, silently inlaid (Through quick motions made before me) With fair counterparts in shade Of the fair serrated ivy-leaves which slanted overhead. XXVIII. 'Is such pavement in a palace ?' The sun, shining through the chalice Of the red rose hung without, Threw within a red libation, like an answer to my doubt. XXIX. At the same time, on the linen Of my childish lap there fell Two white may-leaves, downward winning Through the ceiling's miracle, From a blossom, like an angel, out of sight yet blessing well. XXX. Down to floor and up to ceiling Quick I turned my childish face, For the secret of the place To the trees, which surely knew it in partaking of the grace. XXXI. Where's no foot of human creature And if this be work of nature, Why has nature turned so bland, Breaking off from other wild-work? It was hard to understand. XXXII. Was she weary of rough-doing, Did she pause in tender rueing Or in mock of art's deceiving was the sudden mildness worn? XXXIII. Or could this same bower (I fancied) Be the work of Dryad strong, Who, surviving all that chancëd In the world's old pagan wrong, Lay hid, feeding in the woodland on the last true poet's song? XXXIV. Or was this the house of fairies, Which the passing pilgrim prays, And beyond St. Catherine's chiming on the blessed Sabbath days? XXXV. So, young muser, I sate listening To my fancy's wildest word: On a sudden, through the glistening Leaves around, a little stirred, Came a sound, a sense of music which was rather felt than heard. XXXVI. Softly, finely, it inwound me; Like a fountain, falling round me, Which with silver waters thin Clips a little water Naiad sitting smilingly within. XXXVII. Whence the music came, who knoweth? I know nothing: but indeed Pan or Faunus never bloweth So much sweetness from a reed Which has sucked the milk of waters at the oldest riverhead. XXXVIII. Never lark the sun can waken With such sweetness! when the lark, The high planets overtaking In the half-evanished Dark, Casts his singing to their singing, like an arrow to the mark. XXXIX. Never nightingale so singeth: Oh, she leans on thorny tree Over pain to victory! Yet she never sings such music, or she sings it not to me. XL. Never blackbirds, never thrushes When the sun strikes through the bushes To their crimson clinging feet, And their pretty eyes look sideways to the summer heavens complete. XLI. If it were a bird, it seemed Most like Chaucer's, which, in sooth, He of green and azure dreamëd, While it sate in spirit-ruth On that bier of a crowned lady, singing nigh her silent mouth. XLII. If it were a bird ?—ah, sceptic, Give me yea' or give me 'nay '— As I heard that virëlay, You may stoop your pride to pardon, for my sin is far away! XLIII. I rose up in exaltation And an inward trembling heat, And (it seemed) in geste of passion Dropped the music to my feet Like a garment rustling downwards-such a silence followed it! XLIV. Heart and head beat through the quiet Full and heavily, though slower: In the song, I think, and by it, Mystic Presences of power Had up-snatched me to the Timeless, then returned me to the Hour. XLV In a child-abstraction lifted, Foot and soul being dimly drifted Through the greenwood, till, at last, In the hill-top's open sunshine I all consciously was cast. |