A vision beauteous as the morn, With heavenly eyes and tresses streaming, Slow glided o'er a field late shorn Where walked a poet idly dreaming. He saw her, and joy lit his face, "Oh, vanish not at human speaking," He cried, "thou form of magic grace, Thou art the poem I am seeking. "I've sought thee long! I claim thee now -- My thought embodied, living, real." She shook the tresses from her brow. "Nay, nay!" she said, "I am ideal. I am the phantom of desire -- The spirit of all great endeavor, I am the voice that says, 'Come higher,' That calls men up and up forever. "'T is not alone thy thought supreme That here upon thy path has risen; I am the artist's highest dream, The ray of light he cannot prison. I am the sweet ecstatic note Than all glad music gladder, clearer, That trembles in the singer's throat, And dies without a human hearer. "I am the greater, better yield, That leads and cheers thy farmer neighbor, For me he bravely tills the field And whistles gayly at his labor. Not thou alone, O poet soul, Dost seek me through an endless morrow, But to the toiling, hoping whole I am at once the hope and sorrow. The spirit of the unattained, I am to those who seek to name me, A good desired but never gained. All shall pursue, but none shall claim me." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MY BOY by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON SPRINGTIDE by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON THE NEW APOCRYPHA: BERENICE by EDGAR LEE MASTERS THE FOREFATHER by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON CARELESS CONTENT by JOHN BYROM AN APPEAL TO CATS IN THE BUSINESS OF LOVE; SONG by THOMAS FLATMAN THE WORMS AT HEAVEN'S GATE by WALLACE STEVENS |