A Daffodil

Pure--throated Flower, Smelling of Spring, Shaped beyond art's Imagining; Fathomless colour, Breathed as an ether Of flame and of stillness Melted together; Soul of the sun's beam Changed to fairy Flesh, so delicate, Poised and airy! I think of my own kind, Hardly winning A thousand battles For joy's beginning; Victory bloody And with evil shared, Splendour soiled And greatness snared; Truth conceded Or won by halves, Pitiful sores And sorrier salves; Blind authority Treading like oxen's heels All that sees clearest, All that most feels. But you are absolute (Follow who can!) As a commandment Of God to man. Straight you spring And whole you spend, And fall upon fruitful earth, Clean to the end. O to be pure As a single sense, Keen as scorn, As love intense, To live in the light, And to die in a deed That is faith's Amen And has sown its seed!