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: 40 Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love which overflows her bower: 45 Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aerial hue Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view: 50 Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflowered, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-wingéd thieves. 55 Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, Rain awaken’d flowers, All that ever was Joyous and clear and fresh thy music doth surpass. 60 Teach us, 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: 65 Chorus hymeneal Or triumphant chaunt Match’d with thine, would be all But an empty vaunt, A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 70 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? what ignorance of pain? 75 With thy clear keen joyance Languor cannot be: Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest; but ne’er knew love’s sad satiety. 80 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? 85 We look before and after, And pine for what is not. Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. 90