VIII a Living Poet
He knows the sweet vexation in the strifeOf Love with Time, this bard who fain would strayTo fairer place beyond the storms of life,With astral faces near him day by day.In deep-mossed dells the mellow waters flowWhich best he loves; for there the echoes, rifeWith rich suggestions of his long ago,Astarte, pass with thee! And, far away,Dear southern seasons haunt the dreamy eye:Spring, flower-zoned, and Summer, warbling lowIn tasselled corn, alternate come and go,While gypsy Autumn, splashed from heel to thighWith vine-blood, treads the leaves; and, halting nigh,Wild Winter bends across a beard of snow.