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Coventry Patmore - A Dream
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Amid the mystic fields of Love
              I wander`d, and beheld a grove.
              Breathlessly still was part, and part
              Was breathing with an easy heart;
              And there below, in lamblike game,
              Were virgins, all so much the same,
              That each was all. A youth drew nigh,
              And on them gazed with wandering eye,
              And would have pass`d, but that a maid,
               Clapping her hands above her, said,
               ‘My time is now!’ and laughing ran
               After the dull and strange young man,
               And bade him stop and look at her.
               And so he call`d her lovelier
               Than any else, only because
               She only then before him was.
               And, while they stood and gazed, a change
               Was seen in both, diversely strange:
               The youth was ever more and more
               That good which he had been before;
               But the glad maiden grew and grew
               Such that the rest no longer knew
               Their sister, who was now to sight
               The young man`s self, yet opposite,
               As the outer rainbow is the first,
               But weaker, and the hues reversed.
               And whereas, in the abandon`d grove,
               The virgin round the Central Love
               Had blindly circled in her play,
               Now danced she round her partner`s way;
               And, as the earth the moon`s, so he
               Had the responsibility     
               Of her diviner motion. ‘Lo,’
               He sang, and the heavens began to glow,
               ‘The pride of personality,
               Seeking its highest, aspires to die,
               And in unspeakably profound
               Humiliation Love is crown`d!
               And from his exaltation still
               Into his ocean of good-will
               He curiously casts the lead
               To find strange depths of lowlihead.’

               To one same tune, but higher, ‘Bold,’
               The maiden sang, ‘is Love! For cold
               On Earth are blushes, and for shame
               Of such an ineffectual flame
               As ill consumes the sacrifice!’
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