The Foot-Path

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1. It mounts athwart the windy hill
2. Through sallow slopes of upland bare,
3. And Fancy climbs with foot-fall still
4. Its narrowing curves that end in air.
5.  
6. By day, a warmer-hearted blue
7. Stoops softly to that topmost swell;
8. Its thread-like windings seem a clew
9. To gracious climes where all is well.
10.  
11. By night, far yonder, I surmise
12. An ampler world than clips my ken,
13. Where the great stars of happier skies
14. Commingle nobler fates of men.
15.  
16. I look and long, then haste me home,
17. Still master of my secret rare;
18. Once tried, the path would end in Rome,
19. But now it leads me everywhere.
20.  
21. Forever to the new it guides,
22. From former good, old overmuch;
23. What Nature for her poets hides,
24. 'Tis wiser to divine than clutch.
25.  
26. The bird I list hath never come
27. Within the scope of mortal ear;
28. My prying step would make him dumb,
29. And the fair tree, his shelter, sear.
30.  
31. Behind the hill, behind the sky,
32. Behind my inmost thought, he sings;
33. No feet avail; to hear it nigh,
34. The song itself must lend the wings.
35.  
36. Sing on, sweet bird, close hid, and raise
37. Those angel stairways in my brain,
38. That climb from these low-vaulted days
39. To spacious sunshines far from pain.
40.  
41. Sing when thou wilt, enchantment fleet,
42. I leave thy covert haunt untrod,
43. And envy Science not her feat
44. To make a twice-told tale of God.
45.  
46. They said the fairies tript no more,
47. And long ago that Pan was dead;
48. 'Twas but that fools preferred to bore
49. Earth's rind inch-deep for truth instead.
50.  
51. Pan leaps and pipes all summer long,
52. The fairies dance each full-mooned night,
53. Would we but doff our lenses strong,
54. And trust our wiser eyes' delight.