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To the Memory of B. Y. and A. M. D.
OUR fairest dreams are made of truths, | |
| Nymphs are sweet women, angels youths, | |
| And Eden was an earthly bower: | |
| Not that the heavens are false;—O no! | |
| But that the sweetest thoughts that grow | 5 |
| In earth must have an earthly flower; | |
| Blest, if they know how sweet they are, | |
| And that earth also is a star. | |
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| I met a lady by the sea, | |
| A heart long known, a face desired, | 10 |
| Who led me with sweet breathful glee | |
| To one that sat retired,— | |
| That sat retired in reverend chair, | |
| That younger lady’s pride and care, | |
| Fading heavenward beauteously | 15 |
| In a long-drawn life of love, | |
| With smiles below and thoughts above: | |
| And round her played that fairy she, | |
| Like Impulse by Tranquillity. | |
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| And truly might they, in times old, | 20 |
| Have deemed her one of fairy mould | |
| Keeping some ancestral queen | |
| Deathless, in a bower serene: | |
| For oft she might be noticed walking | |
| Where the seas at night were talking; | 25 |
| Or extracting with deep look | |
| Power from out some learned book; | |
| Or with pencil or with pen | |
| Charming the rapt thoughts of men: | |
| And her eyes! they were so bright, | 30 |
| They seemed to dance with elfin light, | |
| Playmates of pearly smiles, and yet | |
| So often and so sadly wet, | |
| That Pity wondered to conceive | |
| How lady so beloved could grieve. | 35 |
| And oft would both those ladies rare, | |
| Like enchantments out of air, | |
| In a sudden shower descend | |
| Of balm on want, or flowers on friend; | |
| No matter how remote the place, | 40 |
| For fairies laugh at time and space. | |
| From their hearts the gifts were given, | |
| As the light leaps out of heaven. | |
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| Their very house was fairy;—none | |
| Might find it without favor won | 45 |
| For some great zeal, like errant-knight, | |
| Or want and sorrow’s holy right; | |
| And then they reached it by long rounds | |
| Of lanes between thick pastoral grounds | |
| Nest-like, and alleys of old trees, | 50 |
| Until at last, in lawny ease, | |
| Down by a garden and its fountains, | |
| In the ken of mild blue mountains, | |
| Rose, as if exempt from death, | |
| Its many-centuried household breath. | 55 |
| The stone-cut arms above the door | |
| Were such as earliest chieftains bore, | |
| Of simple gear, long laid aside; | |
| And low it was, and warm and wide,— | |
| A home to love, from sire to son, | 60 |
| By white-grown servants waited on. | |
| Here a door opening breathed of bowers | |
| Of ladies, who lead lives of flowers; | |
| There, walls were books; and the sweet witch, | |
| Painting, had there the rooms made rich | 65 |
| With knights, and dames, and loving eyes | |
| Of heaven-gone kindred, sweet and wise; | |
| Of bishops, gentle as their lawn, | |
| And sires, whose talk was one May-dawn. | |
| Last, on the roof, a clock’s old grace | 70 |
| Looked forth, like some enchanted face | |
| That never slept, but in the night | |
| Dinted the air with thoughtful might | |
| Of sudden tongue which seemed to say, | |
| “The stars are firm, and hold their way.” | 75 |
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| Behold me now, like knight indeed, | |
| Whose balmed wound had ceased to bleed, | |
| Behold me in this green domain | |
| Leading a palfrey by the rein, | |
| On which the fairy lady sat | 80 |
| In magic talk, which men call “chat,” | |
| Over mead, up hill, down dale, | |
| While the sweet thoughts never fail, | |
| Bright as what we plucked ’twixt whiles, | |
| The mountain-ash’s thick red smiles; | 85 |
| And aye she laughed, and talked, and rode, | |
| And to blest eyes her visions showed | |
| Of nook, and tower, and mountain rare, | |
| Like bosom, making mild the air; | |
| And seats, endeared by friend and sire, | 90 |
| Facing sunset’s thoughtful fire. | |
| And then, to make romances true, | |
| Before this lady open flew | |
| A garden gate; and lo! right in, | |
| Where horse’s foot had never been, | 95 |
| Rode she! The gardener with a stare | |
| To see her threat his lilies fair, | |
| Uncapped his bent old silver hair, | |
| And seemed to say, “My lady good | |
| Makes all things right in her sweet mood.” | 100 |
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| O land of Druid and of bard, | |
| Worthy of bearded Time’s regard, | |
| Quick-blooded, light-voiced, lyric Wales, | |
| Proud with mountains, rich with vales, | |
| And of such valor that in thee | 105 |
| Was born a third of chivalry | |
| (And is to come again, they say, | |
| Blowing its trumpets into day, | |
| With sudden earthquake from the ground, | |
| And in the midst, great Arthur crowned), | 110 |
| I used to think of thee and thine | |
| As one of an old faded line | |
| Living in his hills apart, | |
| Whose pride I knew, but not his heart: | |
| But now that I have seen thy face, | 115 |
| Thy fields, and ever youthful race, | |
| And women’s lips of rosiest word | |
| (So rich they open), and have heard | |
| The harp still leaping in thy halls, | |
| Quenchless as the waterfalls, | 120 |
| I know thee full of pulse as strong | |
| As the sea’s more ancient song, | |
| And of a sympathy as wide; | |
| And all this truth, and more beside, | |
| I should have known, had I but seen, | 125 |
| O Flint, thy little shore, and been | |
| Where Truth and Dream walk, hand-in-hand, | |
| Bodryddan’s living Fairy-land. | |
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