I KNOW a little garden-close <br />Set thick with lily and red rose, <br />Where I would wander if I might <br />From dewy dawn to dewy night, <br />And have one with me wandering. <br /> <br />And though within it no birds sing, <br />And though no pillar'd house is there, <br />And though the apple boughs are bare <br />Of fruit and blossom, would to God, <br />Her feet upon the green grass trod, <br />And I beheld them as before! <br /> <br />There comes a murmur from the shore, <br />And in the place two fair streams are, <br />Drawn from the purple hills afar, <br />Drawn down unto the restless sea; <br />The hills whose flowers ne'er fed the bee, <br />The shore no ship has ever seen, <br />Still beaten by the billows green, <br />Whose murmur comes unceasingly <br />Unto the place for which I cry. <br /> <br />For which I cry both day and night, <br />For which I let slip all delight, <br />That maketh me both deaf and blind, <br />Careless to win, unskill'd to find, <br />And quick to lose what all men seek. <br /> <br />Yet tottering as I am, and weak, <br />Still have I left a little breath <br />To seek within the jaws of death <br />An entrance to that happy place; <br />To seek the unforgotten face <br />Once seen, once kiss'd, once reft from me <br />Anigh the murmuring of the sea.<br /><br />William Morris<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-nymph-s-song-to-hylas/
