Not while I live may I forget

      That garden which my spirit trod!

      Where dreams were flowers, wild and wet,

      And beautiful as God.

      Not while I breathe, awake adream,

      Shall live again for me those hours,

      When, in its mystery and gleam,

      I met her 'mid the flowers.

      Eyes, talismanic heliotrope,

      Beneath mesmeric lashes, where

      The sorceries of love and hope

      Had made a shining lair.

      And daydawn brows, whereover hung

      The twilight of dark locks; and lips,

      Whose beauty spoke the rose's tongue

      Of fragrance-voweled drips.

      I will not tell of cheeks and chin,

      That held me as sweet language holds;

      Nor of the eloquence within

      Her bosom's moony molds.

      Nor of her large limbs' languorous

      Wind-grace, that glanced like starlight through

      Her ardent robe's diaphanous

      Web of the mist and dew.

      There is no star so pure and high

      As was her look; no fragrance such

      At her soft presence; and no sigh

      Of music like her touch.

      Not while I live may I forget

      That garden of dim dreams! where I

      And Song within the spirit met,

      Sweet Song, who passed me by.

      Nevermore at doorways that are barken

      Shall the madcap wind knock and the noonlight;

      Nor the circle, which thou once didst darken,

      Shine with footsteps of the neighboring moonlight,

      Visitors for whom thou oft didst hearken.

      Nevermore, gallooned with cloudy laces,

      Shall the morning, like a fair freebooter,

      Make thy leaves his richest treasure-places;

      Nor the sunset, like a royal suitor,

      Clothe thy limbs with his imperial graces.

      And no more, between the savage wonder

      Of the sunset and the moon's up-coming,

      Shall the storm, with boisterous hoof-beats, under

      Thy dark roof dance, Faun-like, to the humming

      Of the Pan-pipes of the rain and thunder.

      Oft the satyr spirit, beauty-drunken,

      Of the Spring called; and the music-measure

      Of thy sap made answer; and thy sunken

      Veins grew vehement with youth, whose pressure

      Swelled thy gnarly muscles, winter-shrunken.

      And the germs, deep down in darkness rooted,

      Bubbled green from all thy million oilets,

      Where the spirits, rain-and-sunbeam-suited,

      Of the April made their whispering toilets,

      Or within thy stately shadow footed.

      Oft the hours of blonde Summer tinkled

      At the windows of thy twigs, and found thee

      Bird-blithe; or, with shapely bodies, twinkled

      Lissom feet of naked flowers around thee,

      Where thy mats of moss lay sunbeam-sprinkled.

      And the Autumn with his gipsy-coated

      Troop of days beneath thy branches rested,

      Swarthy-faced and dark of eye; and throated

      Songs of hunting; or with red hand tested

      Every nut-bur that above him floated.

      Then the Winter, barren-browed, but rich in

      Shaggy followers of frost and freezing,

      Made the floor of thy broad boughs his kitchen,

      Trapper-like, to camp in; grimly easing

      Limbs snow-furred and moccasoned with lichen.

      Now, alas! no more do these invest thee

      With the dignity of whilom gladness!

      They – unto whose hearts thou once confessed thee

      Of thy dreams – now know thee not! and sadness

      Sits beside thee where forgot dost rest thee.

      Here in the golden darkness

      And green night of the woods,

      A flitting form I follow,

      A shadow that eludes —

      Or is it but the phantom

      Of former forest moods?

      The phantom of some fancy

      I knew when I was young,

      And in my dreaming boyhood,

      The wildwood flow'rs among,

      Young face to face with Faery

      Spoke in no unknown tongue.

      Blue were her eyes, and golden

      The nimbus of her hair;

      And crimson as a flower

      Her mouth that kissed me there;

      That kissed and bade me follow,

      And smiled away my care.

      A magic and a marvel

      Lived in her word and look,

      As down among the blossoms

      She sate me by the brook,

      And read me wonder-legends

      In Nature's Story Book.

      Loved fairy-tales forgotten,

      She never reads again,

      Of beautiful enchantments

      That haunt the sun and rain,

      And, in the wind and water,

      Chant a mysterious strain.

      And so I search the forest,

      Wherein my spirit feels,

      In tree or stream or flower

      Herself she still conceals —

      But now she flies who followed,

      Whom Earth no more reveals.

      What is it now that I shall seek,

      Where woods dip downward, in the hills? —

      A mossy nook, a ferny creek,

      And May among the daffodils.

      Or in the valley's vistaed glow,

      Past rocks of terraced trumpet-vines,

      Shall