An Elegy

BLESSED be winds, and woods, and springs,
The things of greatness, simple things
That bid their own in peace endure
Man’s greed and cant, and moil and din;
And most in thee who shared their thought
The elemental heart inwrought,
The heart like any open moor
With May-days flocking in.

For thee the gem-bright beach was paved,
The dark autumnal arras waved,
And lanthorning thy road of dreams
Came Hesper and the Hyades.
Dynastic spirit ! not in vain
The Out-of-Door was thy domain,
Whose step was every lonely stream’s ;
Whose look, the alder-tree’s.

Good-night, my sylvan. Many yearn
For that sepulchred smile’s return :
But as above the town there broods
At eve the kindled Rholben height,
As glorious on the hilltop ground
Past sunset-hour the sun is found,
Mine, mine, on memory’s altitudes,
Thy wild beloved light,