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Robert Laurence Binyon - Illumination
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Is it joy, or is it peace,
 Senses` magical release,
 That triumphant swells my heart
 Where I walk the fields apart?
 Miracle of morning new!
 Meadows dabbled fresh in dew;
 Straight--stemmed woods that darkly still
 Stand upon the rounded hill,
 Where the silver saplings gleam
 On the edges of a dream;
 Mists that in faint fleeces blur
 All the frayed plumes of the fir,
 And that whiten the fresh green
 Of the bosomed field between,
 Melted ever more and more
 By the level beams that pour
 Sparkling through the sleepy, rare,
 Delicately coloured air;
 Flowers that wake from peace to peace;
 Subtle--scented loneliness;
 World that drenches through and through
 A stillness exquisite as dew;
 Ploughman ploughing nigh at hand
 Along the open hazy land,
 Calm as though a part of those
 Brown furrows over which he goes:--
 O what fount is it in me
 All this solitude sets free?
 Far from miseries, that dart
 Pangs of pity at the heart,
 Far from prisoning tasks that hide
 The vision true of freedom wide,
 Through a melting curtain clear
 The stir of spring I see and hear:
 Softly the young beams surprise
 My own spirit`s mysteries,
 And my still thought, scarce aware,
 Mingles into radiant air.
 Now my eyes I cast around
 On an unsubstantial ground:
 As I gaze, I seem to grow
 Into Earth, her longing know,
 Feel the swelling of the bud
 Quicken warm within my blood;
 And the grasses shooting higher
 Are a wave of my desire.
 Deep and deeper sinks my mind
 To a charm intense resigned,
 Deep into the grain of things
 Dissolved with its imaginings.

 Now the ploughman ploughs, as he
 Furrowed lines of destiny:
 Now the oak his shadow due
 Claims as if from earth it grew,
 Not by casual beams of day
 Given, and then stolen away.
 I too from Time`s ample womb
 Summon my appointed doom,
 And conjure the hours to bring
 Each its rapture, each its sting.
 In a vista long appears
 The close--peopled street of years.
 There the hands that I shall clasp
 Are stretched out, my own to grasp.
 Ready in my heart the throe
 Burns for each awaiting woe.
 Sorrow with her silent spade
 Graves for unborn hopes hath made.
 Joy about me glides her arm
 Ignorant of grief and harm,
 Like a child that only knows
 Where `tis loved and thither goes.
 Onward on the path begun
 I perceive my footsteps run,
 Yet backward stretching all I find
 In the mirror of my mind;
 In a hundred sleeps behold
 My own face becoming old;
 And inaudibly drawn near
 Death has whispered in my ear.
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