AH, drops of gold in whitening flame Burning, we know your lovely name -- Daisies, that little children pull! Like all weak things, over the strong Ye do not know your power for wrong, And much abuse your feebleness. Weak maids, with flutter of a dress, Increase most heavy tyrannies; And vengeance unto heaven cries For multiplied injustice of dove-eyes. Daisies, that little children pull, As ye are weak, be merciful! O hide your eyes! they are to me Beautiful insupportably. Or be but conscious ye are fair, And I your loveliness could bear; But, being fair so without art, Ye vex the silted memories of my heart! As a pale ghost yearning strays With sundered gaze, 'Mid corporal presences that are To it impalpable -- such a bar Sets you more distant than the morning-star. Such wonder is on you, and amaze, I look and marvel if I be Indeed the phantom, or are ye? The light is on your innocence Which fell from me. The fields ye still inhabit whence My world-acquainted treading strays, The country where I did commence; And though ye shine to me so near, So close to gross and visible sense, Between us lies impassable year on year. To other time and far-off place Belongs your beauty: silent thus, Though to others naught you tell, To me your ranks are rumorous Of an ancient miracle. Vain does my touch your petals graze, I touch you not; and, though ye blossom here, Your roots are fast in alienated days. Ye there are anchored, while Time's stream Has swept me past them: your white ways And infantile delights do seem To look in on me like a face, Dead and sweet, come back through dream, With tears, because for old embrace It has no arms. These hands did toy, Children, with you when I was child, And in each other's eyes we smiled: Not yours, not yours the grievous-fair Apparelling With which you wet mine eyes; you wear, Ah me, the garment of the grace I wove you when I was a boy; O mine, and not the year's, your stolen Spring! And since ye wear it, Hide your sweet selves! I cannot bear it. For, when ye break the cloven earth With your young laughter and endearment, No blossomy carillon 'tis of mirth To me; I see my slaughtered joy Bursting its cerement. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE VOICE by WILFRID WILSON GIBSON ON THOSE THAT HATED 'THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD' by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS IN A SPRING GROVE by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM VERSES, OCCASIONED BY AN AFFECTING INSTANCE OF SUDDEN DEATH by BERNARD BARTON |