New Zealand Verse/Ideal Beauty

CXXIII.

Ideal Beauty.

Absolve me for a while, undo
The links that bind me as your thrall.
So I be more myself, more worthy you;
Let me forget you too in dreams,
Your lang’rous waist and musical
Soft ways, like cadences of streams
Unlooked for, strange, but sweetly rhythmical;

The morning freshness of the rose,
The suave, strong motion of the sea,
The strenuous splendour and repose
Of marble, and the lily’s purity;

All these are types that symbolize
The secret charm, the subtle grace,
The music as of Paradise
That plays about your lissom limbs and face;

Let me forget all these and be
Once more self-centred, circumspect,
And of dædalian longings free.
Let me a fuller, stronger life elect;

So may I on a windy shore
See screaming seagulls flying near,
And hear the hollow channels roar,
Nor seek in every breeze your voice to hear:

Or where the glints of sunshine steal
Through clust’ring clematis and fern,
There let me roam alone and feel
The simple joys of sense for which I yearn;

The lights and shadows of the bush,
The prattling music of the creek,
The stir of insects, and the hush
Of Solitude—these are the joys I seek.

Oh idle words! Since Marsyas died,
How many has Apollo slain?
And ah! how many too have tried
To win you or to shun you—but in vain.

Ebenezer Storry Hay