He dreamed of hills so deep with woods
Storm-barriers on the summer sky
Are not more dark, where plunged loud floods
Down rocks of sullen dye.
Flat ways were his where sparsely grew
Gnarled, iron-colored oaks, with rifts,
Between dead boughs, of Eden-blue:
Ways where the speedwell lifts
Its shy appeal, and spreading far--
The gold, the fallen gold of dawn
Staining each blossom's balanced star--
Hollows of cowslips wan.
Where 'round the feet the lady-smock
And pearl-pale lady-slipper creep;
White butterflies upon them rock
Or seal-brown suck and sleep.
At eve the west shoots crooked fire
Athwart a half-moon leaning low;
While one white, arrowy star throbs higher
In curdled honey-glow.
Was it some elfin euphrasy
That purged his spirit so that there
Blue harebells, by those ways that be,
Seemed summoning to prayer?
For all the death within him prays;
Not he--his higher self, whose love
Fire-filled the flesh. Its light still stays
Touched by the soul above.
They found him dead his songs beside,
Six stairs above the din and dust
Of life: and that for which he died
Denied him even a crust.
