So, for us no world? Let throngs press thee to me! Up and down amid men, heart by heart fare we! 10 Welcome squalid vesture, harsh voice, hateful face! God is soul, souls I and thou; with souls should souls have place. PROLOGUE TO ASOLANDO "The Poet's age is sad: for why? In youth, the natural world could show No common object but his eye At once involved with alien glow-- His own soul's iris-bow. 5 "And now a flower is just a flower; Man, bird, beast are but beast, bird, man Simply themselves, uncinct by dower Of dyes which, when life's day began, Round each in glory ran." 10 Friend, did you need an optic glass, Which were your choice? A lens to drape In ruby, emerald, chrysopras, Each object--or reveal its shape Clear outlined, past escape, 15 The naked very thing?--so clear That, when you had the chance to gaze, You found its inmost self appear Through outer seeming--truth ablaze, Not falsehood's fancy-haze? 20 How many a year, my Asolo, Since--one step just from sea to land-- I found you, loved yet feared you so-- For natural objects seemed to stand Palpably fire-clothed! No-- 25 No mastery of mine o'er these! Terror with beauty, like the Bush Burning but unconsumed. Bend knees, Drop eyes to earthward! Language? Tush! Silence 'tis awe decrees. 30 And now? The lambent flame is--where? Lost from the naked world; earth, sky, Hill, vale, tree, flower--Italia's rare O'errunning beauty crowds the eye-- But flame? The Bush is bare. 35 Hill, vale, tree, flower--they stand distinct, Nature to know and name. What then? A Voice spoke thence which straight unlinked Fancy from fact; see, all's in ken: Has once my eyelid winked? 40 No, for the purged ear apprehends Earth's import, not the eye late dazed. The Voice said, "Call my works thy friends! At Nature dost thou shrink amazed? God is it who transcends." SUMMUM BONUM All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee; All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem; In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea; Breath and bloom, shade and shine--wonder, wealth, and--how far above them-- Truth, that's brighter than gem, 5 Trust, that's purer than pearl-- Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe--all were for me In the kiss of one girl. EPILOGUE TO ASOLANDO