rimeval nest,
High on a promontory
Star-pharosed, where she takes her rest
To brood new aeons 'neath her breast,
The future's unfledged glory.

I know not how, but I was there
All feeling, hearing, seeing;
It was not wind that stirred my hair
But living breath, the essence rare
Of unembodied being. 120

And in the nest an egg of gold
Lay soft in self-made lustre,
Gazing whereon, what depths untold
Within, what marvels manifold,
Seemed silently to muster!

Daily such splendors to confront
Is still to me and you sent?
It glowed as when Saint Peter's front,
Illumed, forgets its stony wont,
And seems to throb translucent. 130

One saw therein the life of man,
(Or so the poet found it,)
The yolk and white, conceive who can,
Were the glad earth, that, floating, span
In the glad heaven around it.

I knew this as one knows in dream,
Where no effects to causes
Are chained as in our work-day scheme,
And then was wakened by a scream
That seemed to come from Baucis. 140

'Bless Zeus!' she cried, 'I'm safe below!'
First pale, then red as coral;
And I, still drowsy, pondered slow,
And seemed to find, but hardly know,
Something like this for moral.

Each day the world is born anew
For him who takes it rightly;
Not fresher that which Adam knew,
Not sweeter that whose moonlit dew
Entranced Arcadia nightly. 150

Rightly? That's simply: 'tis to see
_Some_ substance casts these shadows
Which we call Life and History,
That aimless seem to chase and flee
Like wind-gleams over meadows.

Simply? That's nobly: 'tis to know
That God may still be met with,
Nor groweth old, nor doth bestow
These senses fine, this brain aglow,
To grovel and forget with. 160

Beauty, Herr Doctor, trust in me,
No chemistry will win you;
Charis still rises from the sea:
If you can't find her, _might_ it be
Because you seek within you?

A FAMILIAR EPISTLE TO A FRIEND

Alike I hate to be your debtor,
Or write a mere perfunctory letter;
For letters, so it seems to me,
Our careless quintessence should be,
Our real nature's truant play
When Consciousness looks t'other way;
Not drop by drop, with watchful skill,
Gathered in Art's deliberate still,
But life's insensible completeness
Got as the ripe grape gets its sweetness, 10
As if it had a way to fuse
The golden sunlight into jui