The Rue-Anemone

Under an oak-tree in a woodland, where The dreaming Spring had dropped it from her hair, I found a flower, through which I seemed to gaze Beyond the world and see what no man dare Behold and live the myths of bygone days Diana and Endymion, and the bare Slim beauty of the boy whom Echo wooed; And Hyacinthus whom Apollo dewed With love and death: and Daphne, ever fair; And that reed-slender girl whom Pan pursued. I stood and gazed and through it seemed to see The Dryad dancing by the forest tree, Her hair wild blown: the Faun with listening ear, Deep in the boscage, kneeling on one knee, Watching the wandered Oread draw near, Her wild heart beating like a honey-bee Within a rose. All, all the myths of old, All, all the bright shapes of the Age of Gold, Peopling the wonder-worlds of Poetry, Through it I seemed in fancy to behold. What other flower, that, fashioned like a star, Draws its frail life from earth and braves the war Of all the heavens, can suggest the dreams That this suggests? in which no trace of mar Or soil exists: where stainless innocence seems Enshrined; and where, beyond our vision far, That inaccessible beauty, which the heart Worships as truth and holiness and art, Is symbolized; wherein embodied are The things that make the soul's immortal part.