hrough outer seeming--truth ablaze,
Not falsehood's fancy-haze? 20

How many a year, my Asolo,
Since--one step just from sea to land--
I found you, loved yet feared you so--
For natural objects seemed to stand
Palpably fire-clothed! No-- 25

No mastery of mine o'er these!
Terror with beauty, like the Bush
Burning but unconsumed. Bend knees,
Drop eyes to earthward! Language? Tush!
Silence 'tis awe decrees. 30

And now? The lambent flame is--where?
Lost from the naked world; earth, sky,
Hill, vale, tree, flower--Italia's rare
O'errunning beauty crowds the eye--
But flame? The Bush is bare. 35

Hill, vale, tree, flower--they stand distinct,
Nature to know and name. What then?
A Voice spoke thence which straight unlinked
Fancy from fact; see, all's in ken:
Has once my eyelid winked? 40

No, for the purged ear apprehends
Earth's import, not the eye late dazed.
The Voice said, "Call my works thy friends!
At Nature dost thou shrink amazed?
God is it who transcends."

SUMMUM BONUM

All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee;
All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem;
In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea;
Breath and bloom, shade and shine--wonder, wealth, and--how far
above them--
Truth, that's brighter than gem, 5
Trust, that's purer than pearl--
Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe--all were for me
In the kiss of one girl.

EPILOGUE TO ASOLANDO

At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time,
When you set your fancies free,
Will they pass to where--by death, fools think, imprisoned--
Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so,
--Pity me?

Oh, to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken! 5
What had I on earth to do
With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?
Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel
--Being--who?

One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward,
Never doubted clouds would