Stanzas

Thought is an unseen net wherein our mind     Is taken and vainly struggles to be free:     Words, that should loose our spirit, do but bind     New fetters on our hoped-for liberty:     And action bears us onward like a stream     Past fabulous shores, scarce seen in our swift course;     Glorious - and yet its headlong currents seem     Backwaters of some nobler purer force.     There are slow curves, more subtle far than thought,     That stoop to carry the grace of a girl's breast;     And hanging flowers, so exquisitely wrought     In airy metal, that they seem possessed     Of souls; and there are distant hills that lift     The shoulder of a goddess towards the light;     And arrowy trees, sudden and sharp and swift,     Piercing the spirit deeply with delight.     Would I might make these miracles my own!     Like a pure angel, thinking colour and form,     Hardening to rage in a flame of chiselled stone,     Spilling my love like sunlight, golden and warm     On noonday flowers, speaking the song of birds     Among the branches, whispering the fall of rain,     Beyond all thought, past action and past words,     I would live in beauty, free from self and pain.