Francis William Bourdillon (1852 – 1921)
British poet and translator.
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I buoyed me on the wings of dream,
Above the world of sense;
I set my thought to sound the scheme,
And fathom the Immense;
I tuned my spirit as a lute
To catch wind-music wandering mute.
The Night has a thousand eyes,
And the Day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.
Sudden thy silent beauty on me shone,
Fair as the moon had given thee all her spell.
Then, as Endymion had found on earth,
In unchanged beauty but in fashion changed,
Her whom I loved so long; so felt I then,
Not that a new love in my heart had birth,
But that the old, that far from reach had ranged,
Was now on earth, and to be loved of men.
As strong, as deep, as wide as is the sea,
Though by the wind made restless as the wind,
By billows fretted and by rocks confined,
So strong, so deep, so wide my love for thee.
I walk as one unclothed of flesh,
I wash my spirit clean;
I see old miracles afresh,
And wonders yet unseen.
I will not leave Thee till Thou give
Some word whereby my soul may live!
So my great love for thee lies tranquil, deep,
Forever; though above it passions fierce,
Ambition, hatred, jealousy; like waves
That seem from earth’s core to the sky to leap,
But ocean’s depths can never really pierce;
Hide its great calm, while all the surface raves.
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