The Glimpse

Art thou asleep? or have thy wings

Wearied of my unchanging skies?

Or, haply, is it fading dreams

Are in my eyes?

Not even an echo in my heart

Tells me the courts thy feet trod last,

Bare as a leafless wood it is,

The summer past.

My inmost mind is like a book

The reader dulls with lassitude,

Wherein the same old lovely words

Sound poor and rude.

Yet through this vapid surface, I

Seem to see old-time deeps; I see,

Past the dark painting of the hour,

Life's ecstasy.

Only a moment; as when day

Is set, and in the shade of night,

Through all the clouds that compassed her,

Stoops into sight

Pale, changeless, everlasting Dian,

Gleams on the prone Endymion,

Troubles the dulness of his dreams:

And then is gone.