Prefatory Sonnets I

I purposed once to take my pen and write,
   Not songs, like some, tormented and awry
   With passion, but a cunning harmony
Of words and music caught from glen and height,
And lucid colours born of woodland light
   And shining places where the sea-streams lie.
But this was when the heat of youth glowed white,
   And since I've put the faded purpose by.
I have no faultless fruits to offer you
   Who read this book; but certain syllables
   Herein are borrowed from unfooted dells
And secret hollows dear to noontide dew;
And these at least, though far between and few,
   May catch the sense like subtle forest spells.

So take these kindly, even though there be
   Some notes that unto other lyres belong,
   Stray echoes from the elder sons of song;
And think how from its neighbouring native sea
The pensive shell doth borrow melody.
   I would not do the lordly masters wrong
   By filching fair words from the shining throng
Whose music haunts me as the wind a tree!
   Lo, when a stranger in soft Syrian glooms
Shot through with sunset treads the cedar dells,
And hears the breezy ring of elfin bells
   Far down by where the white-haired cataract booms,
He, faint with sweetness caught from forest smells,
   Bears thence, unwitting, plunder of perfumes.