But hark again, From the secret glen, That voice of rapture and ethereal youth Now laden with despair. Forbear, O bird, forbear: Is life not terrible enough forsooth? Cease, cease the mystic song-- No more, no more, the passion and the pain: It wakes my life to fret against the chain; It makes me think of all the agèd wrong-- Of joy and the end of joy and the end of all-- Of souls on Earth, and souls beyond recall. Ah, ah, that voice again! It makes me think of all these restless men, Called into time--their progress and their goal; And now, oh now, it sends into my soul Dreams of a love that might have been for me-- That might have been--and now can never be. Tell me no more of these-- Tell me of trancèd trees; (The ghosts, the memories, in pity spare) Show me the leafy home of the wild bees; Show me the snowy summits dim in air; Tell me of things afar In valleys silent under moon and star: Dim hollows hushed with night, The lofty cedars misty in the light, Wild clusters of the vine, Wild odors of the pine, The eagle’s eyrie lifted to the moon-- High places where on quiet afternoon A shadow swiftens by, a thrilling scream Startles the cliff, and dies across the woodland to a dream. Ha, now He springs from the bough, It flickers--he is lost! Out of the copse he sprang; This is the floating briar where he tossed: The leaves are yet atremble where he sang. Here a long vista opens--look! This is the way he took, Through the pale poplars by the pond: Hark! he is shouting in the field beyond. Ho, there he goes Through the alder close! He leaves me here behind him in his flight, And yet my heart goes with him out of sight! What whispered spell Of Faëry calls me on from dell to dell? I hear the voice--it wanders in a dream-- Now in the grove, now on the hill, now on the fading stream. Lead on--you know the way-- Lead on to Arcady, O’er fields asleep; by river bank abrim; Down leafy ways, dewy and cool and dim; By dripping rocks, dark dwellings of the gnome, Where hurrying waters dash their crests to foam. I follow where you lead, Down winding paths, across the flowery mead, Down silent hollows where the woodbine blows, Up water-courses scented by the rose. I follow the wandering voice-- I follow, I rejoice, I fade away into the Age of Gold-- We two together lost in forest old.-- O ferny and thymy paths, O fields of Aidenn, Canyons and cliffs by mortal feet untrod! O souls that weary and are heavy laden, Here is the peace of God!