38. A New World

George William Russell

I WHO had sought afar from earth
The faery land to meet,
Now find content within its girth
And wonder nigh my feet.


To-day a nearer love I choose
And seek no distant sphere;
For aureoled by faery dews
The dear brown breasts appear.


With rainbow radiance come and go
The airy breaths of day;
And eve is all a pearly glow
With moonlit winds a-play.


The lips of twilight burn my brow,
The arms of night caress:
Glimmer her white eyes drooping now
With grave old tenderness.


I close mine eyes from dream to be
The diamond-rayed again,
As in the ancient hours ere we
Forgot ourselves to men.


And all I thought of heaven before
I find in earth below:
A sunlight in the hidden core
To dim the noonday glow.


And with the earth my heart is glad,
I move as one of old;
With mists of silver I am clad
And bright with burning gold.

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