I purposed once to take my pen and write, <br /> Not songs, like some, tormented and awry <br /> With passion, but a cunning harmony <br />Of words and music caught from glen and height, <br />And lucid colours born of woodland light <br /> And shining places where the sea-streams lie. <br />But this was when the heat of youth glowed white, <br /> And since I've put the faded purpose by. <br />I have no faultless fruits to offer you <br /> Who read this book; but certain syllables <br /> Herein are borrowed from unfooted dells <br />And secret hollows dear to noontide dew; <br />And these at least, though far between and few, <br /> May catch the sense like subtle forest spells. <br /> <br />So take these kindly, even though there be <br /> Some notes that unto other lyres belong, <br /> Stray echoes from the elder sons of song; <br />And think how from its neighbouring native sea <br />The pensive shell doth borrow melody. <br /> I would not do the lordly masters wrong <br /> By filching fair words from the shining throng <br />Whose music haunts me as the wind a tree! <br /> Lo, when a stranger in soft Syrian glooms <br />Shot through with sunset treads the cedar dells, <br />And hears the breezy ring of elfin bells <br /> Far down by where the white-haired cataract booms, <br />He, faint with sweetness caught from forest smells, <br /> Bears thence, unwitting, plunder of perfumes.<br /><br />Henry Kendall<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/prefatory-sonnets-i/
