By night, far yonder, I surmise
      An ampler world than clips my ken, 10
    Where the great stars of happier skies
      Commingle nobler fates of men.

    I look and long, then haste me home,
      Still master of my secret rare;
    Once tried, the path would end in Rome, 15
      But now it leads me everywhere.

    Forever to the new it guides,
      From former good, old overmuch;
    What Nature for her poets hides,
      ’Tis wiser to divine than clutch. 20

    The bird I list hath never come
      Within the scope of mortal ear;
    My prying step would make him dumb,
      And the fair tree, his shelter, sear.

    Behind the hill, behind the sky, 25
      Behind my inmost thought, he sings;
    No feet avail; to hear it nigh,
      The song itself must lend the wings.

    Sing on, sweet bird, close hid, and raise
      Those angel stairways in my brain, 30
    That climb from these low-vaulted days
      To spacious sunshines far from pain.

    Sing when thou wilt, enchantment fleet,
      I leave thy covert haunt untrod,
    And envy Science not her feat 35
      To make a twice-told tale of God.

    They said the fairies tript no more,
      And long ago that Pan was dead;
    ’Twas but that fools preferred to bore
      Earth’s rind inch-deep for truth instead. 40

    Pan leaps and pipes all summer long,
      The fairies dance each full-mooned night,
    Would we but doff our lenses strong,
      And trust our wiser eyes’ delight.

    City of Elf-land, just without 45
      Our seeing, marvel ever new,
    Glimpsed in fair weather, a sweet doubt
      Sketched-in, mirage-like, on the blue.

    I build thee in yon sunset cloud,
      Whose edge allures to climb the height; 50
    I hear thy drowned bells, inly-loud,
      From still pools dusk with dreams of night.

    Thy gates are shut to hardiest will,
      Thy countersign of long-lost speech,—­
    Those fountained courts, those chambers still, 55
      Fronting Time’s far East, who shall reach?

    I know not, and will never pry,
      But trust our human heart for all;
    Wonders that from the seeker fly
      Into an open sense may fall. 60

    Hide in thine own soul, and surprise
      The password of the unwary elves;
    Seek it, thou canst not bribe their spies;
      Unsought, they whisper it themselves.