Page:Dreams and Images.djvu/287

They at least are for me, surely for me!
I turned me to them very wistfully;
But, just as their young eyes grew sudden fair
    With dawning answers there,
Their angel plucked them from me by the hair.
"Come then, ye other children, Nature's—share
With me" (said I) "your delicate fellowship;
          Let me greet you lip to lip,
          Let me twine with you caresses,
            Wantoning
          With our Lady-Mother's vagrant tresses,
            Banqueting
          With her in her wind-walled palace,
          Underneath her azured dais,
          Quaffing, as your taintless way is,
            From a chalice
Lucent-weeping out of the day spring."
            So it was done:
I in their delicate fellowship was one—
Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies.
I knew all the swift importings
          On the wilful face of skies;
          I knew how the clouds arise
          Spumed of the wild sea-snortings;
            All that's born or dies
          Rose and drooped with—made them shapers
Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine—
          With them joyed and was bereaven.
          I was heavy with the even,
          When she lit her glimmering tapers
          Round the day's dead sanctities.
          I laughed in the morning's eyes.
I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,