Canto XXIII

Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut,

      Or breaking into song by fits;

      Alone, alone, to where he sits,

The Shadow cloak'd from head to foot

Who keeps the keys of all the creeds,

      I wander, often falling lame,

      And looking back to whence I came,

Or on to where the pathway leads;

And crying, How changed from where it ran

      Thro' lands where not a leaf was dumb;

      But all the lavish hills would hum

The murmur of a happy Pan:

When each by turns was guide to each,

      And Fancy light from Fancy caught,

      And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought,

Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech:

And all we met was fair and good,

      And all was good that Time could bring,

      And all the secret of the Spring

Moved in the chambers of the blood:

And many an old philosophy

      On Argive heights divinely sang,

      And round us all the thicket rang

To many a flute of Arcady.