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.