"As sweet as window-eglantine, Some bough of which, as they decline, The hired nurse gathers at their sign: "As sweet, in short, as perfumed shroud Which the gay Roman maidens sewed For English Keats, singing aloud." The lady answered, "Yea, as sweet! The things thou namest being complete In fragrance, as I measure it. "Since sweet the death-clothes and the knell Of him who having lived, dies well; And wholly sweet the asphodel "Stirred softly by that foot of his, When he treads brave on all that is, Into the world of souls, from this. "Since sweet the tears, dropped at the door Of tearless Death, and even before: Sweet, consecrated evermore. "What, dost thou judge it a strange thing That poets, crowned for vanquishing, Should bear some dust from out the ring? "Come on with me, come on with me, And learn in coming: let me free Thy spirit into verity." She ceased: her palfrey's paces sent No separate noises as she went; 'Twas a bee's hum, a little spent. And while the poet seemed to tread Along the drowsy noise so made, The forest heaved up overhead Its billowy foliage through the air, And the calm stars did far and spare O'erswim the masses everywhere Save when the overtopping pines Did bar their tremulous light with lines All fixed and black. Now the moon shines A broader glory. You may see The trees grow rarer presently; The air blows up more fresh and free: Until they come from dark to light, And from the forest to the sight Of the large heaven-heart, bare with night, A fiery throb in every star, Those burning arteries that are The conduits of God's life afar,-- A wild brown moorland underneath, And four pools breaking up the heath With white low gleamings, blank as death. Beside the first pool, near the wood, A dead tree in set horror stood, Peeled and disjointed, stark as rood; Since thunder-stricken, years ago, Fixed in the spectral strain and throe Wherewith it struggled from the blow: A monumental tree, alone, That will not bend in storms, nor groan, But break off sudden like a stone. Its lifeless shadow lies oblique Upon the pool where, javelin-like, The star-rays quiver while they strike. "Drink," said the lady, very still-- "Be holy and cold." He did her will And drank the starry water chill. The next pool they came near unto Was bare of trees; there, only grew Straight flags, and lilies just a few Which sullen on the water sate And leant their faces on the flat, As weary of the starlight-state. "Drink," said the lady, grave and slow-- "_World's use_ behoveth thee to know." He drank the bitter wave below. The third pool, girt with thorny bushes And flaunting weeds and reeds and rushes That winds sang through in mournful gushes, Was whitely smeared in many a round By a slow slime; the starlight swound Over the ghastly light it found.