Page:Papers on Literature and Art (Fuller).djvu/88

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72
PAPERS ON LITERATURE AND ART.

Scattering unbeholden
 Its aerial hue
Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view.
 
Like a rose embowered
 In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflowered,
 Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet, those heavy-winged thieves.
 
Sound of vernal showers
 On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,
 All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.
 
Teach us, sprite or bird,
 What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
 Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
 
Chorus hymeneal,
 Or triumphant chaunt,
Matched with thine would be all
 But an empty vaunt—
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.
 
What objects are the fountains
 Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
 What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?
 
With thy clear keen joyance
 Languor cannot be;
Shadow of annoyance
 Never came near thee:
Thou lovest; but ne’er knew love’s sad satiety.”

I do not like to omit a word of it: but it is taking too much room. Should we not say from the samples before us that Shel-