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Home  »  Anthology of Massachusetts Poets  »  To Imagination

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Massachusetts Poets. 1922.

To Imagination

O BEAUTEOUS boy a-dream, what visions sought

Of pictures magical thy eyes unfold,

What triumphs of celestial wonders wrought,

What marvels from a breath of beauty rolled!

Skyward and seaward on the clouds are scrolled,

A mystic imagery of castled thought,

A thousand worlds to lose,—or win and mould—

A radiant iridescence swiftly caught

Of ever-changing glory, fancy-fraught.

Blue wonder of the sea and luminous sky,

A thousand wonders in thy dreamlit face,—

Eyes that behold afar the turrets high

Of Ilium, and the transient mortal grace

Of Deirdre’s sadness, all the conquering race

Of Athens,—eyes that saw Eden’s beauty lie

In passionate adoration—visions trace

Across the tender brooding of the sigh

That wrecked a city and made chieftains die.

Forward not backward turns the mystic shine

Of those far-seeing orbs that track the gleam—

The fleecy marvel of the cloud is line

On line the wizard tracery of a dream.

O lad, who buildest not of things that seem,

Beyond what bounds of visioning divine

Came that far smile, from what long-strayed sunbeam

Caught thou the radiance, from what fostering vine

The power to build and mould the deep design?

Knowest thou the secret that thy brush would tell,

Is all the dream a bubbled splendor white,

Beyond those castles cloud-bound, does there dwell

The eternal silence of the dark—or light?

Will thy hand hold the pen which shall indict

The symboled mystery—write the final knell

Of rainbow fancy—is the distant sight

A nothingless encircled by a spell

Of gleaming bubbles wrought of beauty’s shell?

In vain to question, where the mystery

Of Youth’s short golden dream is lord and king.

The eyes that farthest gaze in ecstasy,

Were never meant to paint the immortal thing

They see, nor understand the joy they bring.

The misty baubles of the sky and sea

Sail on. Dream still, bright-visioned boy, and fling

The glittering mantle of thy thoughts that flee,

Weaving us evermore thy shining pageantry.