Ah, I must follow it high and low, Tho' it leave me cold to your human touch! Some starry sorcery made me so; And from my birth have I been such. What is it I follow so secret-lone? Over the hills and along the sea? Beauty with every seed is sown, For you, for them, for me? Not so, by the gods! Do I not hear In the night a tender-muffled crying, Rising, falling, sinking, dying? Oh, I must follow it thro' the world! Not so, by the gods! When the dawn-wind stirs, Rustling over the river-reeds, Trembling over the wet pastures, Shall I not follow it, whither it leads? Oh, wild and sad, oh, wild and sweet, Is the lonely horn that I always hear, Blown from the place where all streams meet, Where all horizons disappear! The long sea-tides bring home to port, Their ships by many a moonlit wharf, But an ebbing twilight carries my thought Beyond every coast it would anchor off. Like a reef-bell rocking and ringing low, Under a grey and rain-swept sky, The beauty I follow doth come and go, And if I found it, I should die. The wild-bird of my longing sings Always in the next hollow, And always, always it spreads its wings, When I cross the hill to follow. Ah! Once when the burning noon was poured On moss and stone and dreaming sod, I saw the great blue flower that God Made for the Son of God. And do you think I can go content, With the beauty we meet with everywhere, When I have breathed that flower's scent And seen it melt into the air? Oh, I must follow it high and low, Though it leave me cold to your human touch, Some starry sorcery made me so; And from my birth have I been such. |