The Flitting (III)

The hawthorns here were hung with may,
But still they seem in deader green,
The sun e'en seems to lose its way
Nor knows the quarter it is in.
I dwell on trifles like a child,
I feel as ill becomes a man,
And still my thoughts like weedlings wild
Grow up to blossom where they can.

They turn to places known so long
I feel that joy was dwelling there,
So home-fed pleasures fill the song
That has no present joys to heir.
I read in books for happiness,
But books are like the sea to joy;
They change—as well give age the glass
To hunt its visage when a boy.

For books they follow fashions new
And throw all old esteems away,
In crowded streets flowers never grew,
But many there hath died away.
Some sing the pomps of chivalry
As legends of the ancient time,
Where gold and pearls and mystery
Are shadows painted for sublime.

But passions of sublimity
Belong to plain and simpler things,
And David underneath a tree
Sought when a shepherd Salem's springs,
Where moss did into cushions spring,
Forming a seat of velvet hue,
A small unnoticed trifling thing
To all but heaven's hailing dew.

And David's crown hath passed away,
Yet poesy breathes his shepherd-skill,
His palace lost—and to this day
The little moss is blooming still.

(tbc)