Canto 20Phaethon
Book 1. Part One - England and Baroda 1883 – 1898
England and Baroda, 1883–1898
I studied Nature like a book
Men rack for meanings: yet I find
No rubric in the scarlet rose,
5No moral in the murmuring wind,
No message in the snows.
For me the daisy shines a star,
The crocus flames a spire,
A horn of golden fire,
10Narcissus glows a silver bar:
Cowslips, the golden breath of God,
I deem the poet’s heritage,
And lilies silvering the sod
Breathe fragrance from his page.
15No herald of the sun am I
But in a moonlit vale
A russet nightingale
Who pours sweet song, he knows not why,
Who pours like wine a gurgling note
20Paining with sound his swarthy throat,
Who pours sweet song he recks not why
Nor hushes ever lest he die.
Phaethon
Ye weeping poplars by the shelvy slope
25From murmurous lawns downdropping to the stream
On whom the dusk air like a sombre dream
Broods and a twilight ignorant of hope,
Say what compulsion drear has bid you seam
Your mossy sides with drop on eloquent drop
30That in warm rillets from your eyes elope?