The English Lyric 43 



certain stanzas reveals a tighter reined fancy and a hint of dra- 

 matic interlinking. These come in the first flush of inspiration : 



Hail sister springs, 

 Parents of silver-footed rills! 



Ever-bubbling things ! 

 Throwing crystal! Snowy hills! 

 Still spending, never spent; I mean 

 Thy fair eyes, sweet Magdalene. 



Heavens thy fair eyes be; 

 Heavens of ever-falling stars; 



'Tis seed-time still with thee, 

 And stars thou sow'st, whose harvest dares 

 Promise the earth to countershine 

 Whatever makes Heaven's forehead fine. 



But we're deceived all ; 

 Stars indeed they are too true, 



For they but seem to fall 

 As Heaven's other spangles do; 

 It is not for our earth and us, 

 To shine in things so precious. 



Upwards thou dost weep ; 

 Heaven's bosom drinks the gentle stream. 



Where the milky rivers creep, 

 Thine floats above and is the cream. 

 Waters above the heavens, what they be, 

 We are best taught by thy tears and thee. 



Every morn from hence 

 A brisk cherub something sips, 



Whose soft influence 

 Adds sweetness to his sweetest lips; 

 Then to his music: and his song 

 Tastes of his breakfast all day long. 



These stanzas rise above poetic conceit to poetic allegory, or 

 indeed to pure symbolism. I suspect that any conceit becomes 

 allegory to an imaginative sympathy lively enough to fill in the 

 hiatus and catch the meaning underlying the overbright concrete- 

 ness. For allegory is always an objectively concrete rendering of 



385 



