Nest of Mist, The - Part 1

A Mood of Mystery

Is it a womb of dreams,
That nest of mist? I hear
The little hymns of toads,
Sung to the quiet Mother of wild things
While tombstone-light
Whitens old bones of roads;
And pagan trees at prayer,
Backs to the moon,
Worship the silver stir of light
Which hides some boon,
New, in the lap of her to-night.
A hunt of nimbus-thoughts
With dogs of mist,
Dim riders-of-the-haze
Blow by, in Phrygian caps
Moon-kissed, while crickets cry—
Spume to the drowsiest wind,
They scatter over
Hills with a gleam
Like thinned quicksilver-steam
In phantom clover.
All night Earth will draw back to her
This barmy cover,
Trying to make some mystery of life
With the young moon above her,
Drawing it back
As if she would rescind
A hill-top marriage
With the naked wind.

Blind eyes, dead ears,
Can you have lost
The mystery of Earth?
Blind eyes, to-night,
That lake of mist
Subtle with quickening light!
The Earth has teemed
Unto the ancient moon
With spirit-birth.
Dead ears,—how deaf
With little chat of man,—
Have you heard once
Since you and I began,
The old, old language of the sea,
Or the tormented winds,
Those tongues of mystery,
That speak in tones
Beyond all thought
To link us with the stones?
Dead ears and eyes,
By thought and matter sickened,
To-night by mist you have been quickened.