1.
Come, queen of fantasy,
Stream, field, and sky are tortured with the light;
We cannot any more
Support the eye so pitiless and bright
Of heaven's inquisitor :
Come, airs that fly,

2.
Stillness that cannot stay,
Prophetic hues and transitory bloom,
Last fitful gleams of life :
Come, tantalising passionless perfume,
Lull the wild limbs of strife.
Things of a day,

3.
Daily we die, are born.
Not only the brief flowers and butterflies
Are measured by the sun,
And when the god their being worships dies
Through their due hours have run ;
We with the morn.

4.
Wake from a nightly death,
Miscalled sleep by things more wise than they;
Our strength it is as theirs,
It waxeth and it waneth with the day,
Kind night the loss repairs ;
And with new breath

5.
We flutter forth once more,
We rise as they another and the same :
No day is like the last,
Yet are they endless j that is gone that came,
Another follows fast,—
Soon that is o'er.

6.
As from its ashes cold
Rises the fabled bird of Araby,
We till our year is out
Ever return ; our humours change and flee,
As change the suns about,
Till the tale's told.

7.
We whom the Muse hath shown
This mystery, continual birth and death,
When our hour draweth nigh,
Our limbs wax faint and slowly comes our breath ;
Yet seems it hard to die
Friendless, alone :

8.
Ever we call to thee,
Goddess all-present, infinite Loveliness,
Link all thy arms with mine,
Passing to dreadful death and nothingness ;
My being fades in thine
And thou in me.