Fen Water
A SHALLOW pool, embayed in alders, fills
The meadow end, where tangled flag-blades steep;
A shallow pool, that boasts the sky’s blue deep
With worlds abloom like golden daffodils :
A tideless ooze, whose fairer seeming skills
To vaunt a nether firmament of stars
Between yon rush and the gray pasture bars,
Beyond a purple mystery of hills.
And we ? ’T is much, O soul, if thou and I —
Fen water, with the track of bestial kine
Deep in the mud at bottom — do aspire
To cloak us with the gracious, boundless sky,
Plead God-a-mercy, and with purpose fine
Answer the starbeam with reflected fire.
The meadow end, where tangled flag-blades steep;
A shallow pool, that boasts the sky’s blue deep
With worlds abloom like golden daffodils :
A tideless ooze, whose fairer seeming skills
To vaunt a nether firmament of stars
Between yon rush and the gray pasture bars,
Beyond a purple mystery of hills.
And we ? ’T is much, O soul, if thou and I —
Fen water, with the track of bestial kine
Deep in the mud at bottom — do aspire
To cloak us with the gracious, boundless sky,
Plead God-a-mercy, and with purpose fine
Answer the starbeam with reflected fire.
Edgar Mayhew Bacon