Thule

Random rock
And the stain of the rain,
Smell of bracken,
The windy moor
And the wild cloud,
And rising blurred
In the showery gray
A nameless mound
Of the perished people
Who built nothing,--
Content I savour
My Northern earth,
Till memory's shuttle
Darts across it
A far picture;
A little temple
Long deserted
Warming its honey--pale
Gracious columns
In the soft South.
Remote the mountains
In blue noon;
Before the temple
A spring bubbles
In vivid grass.
There once approaching
To enter the sacred
Dimness, youth
Beheld gleaming
The breasts of Venus;
Vanished! only
The morning sun
Comes to the marble
Warm as the touch
Of youthful lips.
Am I there,
Where the vines redden
Beneath white towers
And dark the cypress
Points aloof,
Where Beauty brought forth
Wondrous children
To smile down Time
And the passing, passing
Trouble of the world?
Or here, where rooted
Ancient fibre
Stirs to the wind
And the blood in answer
Deeply stirs;
To the wind that smells
Of ocean spray,
That blows as the spirit
Blows, and finds
Upon earth no home?