Rich raptures, you say, our dreams assume,

Slaking the heart’s immortal thirst?

Only the old we reillume;

But think—to have dreamed the flowers first!

Think,—to have dreamed the first blue sea;

Imaged every illustrious hue

Of the earliest sunset’s tapestry;

And the snow,—and the birds, when their songs were new!

Think,—from the blue of highest heaven

To have sown all the stars, to have whispered “Light!”—

Hung a moon in a prismy even,

Spun a world on its splendid flight!

To have first conceived of boundless Space;

To have thought so small as to garb the trees;

All planet years in your mind’s embrace,—

And the midge’s life, for all of these!

And Man still boasts of his brain’s weak best

In dream or invention; from first to last

Blunders ’mid wonders barely guessed.

And fondly believes that his thoughts are “vast”!

Before man came to blow it right
    The wind once blew itself untaught,
And did its loudest day and night
    In any rough place where it caught.

Man came to tell it what was wrong:
    It hadn’t found the place to blow;
It blew too hard—the aim was song.
    And listen—how it ought to go!

He took a little in his mouth,
    And held it long enough for north
To be converted into south,
    And then by measure blew it forth.

By measure. It was word and note,
    The wind the wind had meant to be—
A little through the lips and throat.
    The aim was song—the wind could see.