Like a poet hidden 



In the light of thought 

 Singing hymns unbidden, 



Till the world is wrought 

 To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not ; 



Teach me, sprite or bird. 



What sweet thoughts are thine ; 

 I have never heard 



Praise of love or wine 

 That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine. 



Chorus hymeneal, 



Or triumphal chaunt, 

 Matched with thine, would be all 



But an empty vaunt, 

 A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 



What objects are the fountains 



Of thy happy strain? 

 What fields or waves or mountains? 



What shapes of sky or plain? 

 What love of thine own kind? W'hat ignorance of pain? 



Waking or asleep. 



Thou of death must deem 

 Things more true and deep 



Than we mortals dream. 

 Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream? 



Teach me half the gladness 



That thy brain must know. 

 Such harmonious madness 



From my lips would flow, 

 The world should listen then, as I am listening now. 



I 



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