Whence come ye, so wild and so fleet,
For sandals of lightning are on your feet,
And your wings are soft and swift as thought,
And your eyes are as love which is veiled not.
We come from the mind,
Of humankind,
Which was late, so dusk and obscene and blind.
Now, 'tis an ocean,
Of clear emotion
A heaven of serene and mighty emotion
From the dim recesses,
Of woven caresses,
Where lovers catch ye by your loose tresses,
From azure isles,
Where sweet wisdom smiles,
Delaying your ships with their siren smiles.
We waded and flew
And the islets were few
Where the bud-blighted flowers of happiness grew,
Our spoil is won
Our task is done,
We are free to dive, or soar, or run,
Beyond and around,
Or within the bound,
Which clips the world with darkness around
The joy, the triumph, the delight, the madness,
The boundless, overflowing, bursting gladness,
The vaporous exultation not to be confined,
Ha! Ha! the animation of delight.
Which wraps me like an atmosphere of light
And bears me as a cloud is borne by its own wind
As the dissolving warmth of dawn may fold,
A half-unfrozen dew-globe, green and gold
And crystalline, till it becomes a winged mist,
And wanders up the vault of the blue day,
Outlives the noon, and on the sun's last ray,
Hangs over the sea, a fleece of fire and amethyst