Comfortable Light

Most comfortable Light,     Light of the small lamp burning up the night,     With dawn enleagued against the beaten dark;     Pure golden perfect spark;     Or sudden wind-bright flame,     That but the strong-handed wind can urge or tame;     Chill loveliest light the kneeling clouds between,     Silverly serene;     Comfort of happy light,     That mouse-like leaps amid brown leaves, cheating sight;     Clear naked stars, burning with swift intense     Earthward intelligence;--     Sensitive, single     Points in the dark inane that purely tingle     With eager fire, pouring night's circles through     Their living blue;     Dark light still waters hold;     Broad silver moonpath trodden into gold:     Candle-flame glittering through the traveller's night--     Most comfortable light....     And lovelier, the eye     Where light from darkness shines unfathomably,     Light secret, clear, shallow, profound, known, strange,     Constant alone in change:--     Not that wild light that turns     Hunted from dying eyes when the last fire burns;     O, not that bitter light of wounded things,     When bony anguish springs     Sudden, intolerable;     Nor light of mad eyes gleaming up from hell....     Come not again, wild light! Shine not again,     Hill-flare of pain!     But thou, most holy light....     Not the noon blaze that stings, too fiercely bright,     Not that unwinking stare of shameless day;     But thou, the gray,     Nun-like and silent, still,     Fine-breathed on many an eastern bare green hill;     Keen light of gray eyes, cool rain, and stern spears;     Sad light, but not to tears:--     --O, comfort thou of eyes     Watching expectant from chill northern skies,     Excellent joy for lids heavy with night--     Strange with delight!