Page:Poems Barrett.djvu/154

"Let the poets dream such dreaming! Madam, in these British islands,
'Tis the substance that wanes ever, 'tis the symbol that exceeds:
Soon we shall have nought hut symbol! and for statues like this Silence
Shall accept the rose's marble—in another case, the weed's."

"I let you dream," she retorted, "and I grant where'er you go, you
Find for things, names—shows for actions, and pure gold for honour clear;
But when all is run to symbol in the Social, I will throw you
The world's hook, which now reads drily, and sit down with Silence here."

Half in playfulness she spoke, I thought, and half in indignation;
Her friends turned her words to laughter, while her lovers deemed her fair,—
A fair woman—flushed with feeling, in her noble-lighted station,
Near the statue's white reposing—and both bathed in sunny air!—

With the trees round, not so distant, but you heard their vernal murmur,
And beheld in light and shadow the leaves in and outward move;
And the little fountain leaping toward the sun-heart to be warmer,
And recoiling backward, trembling with the too much light above—

'Tis a picture for remembrance! and thus, morning after morning,
Did I follow as she drew me, by the spirit, to her feet—