I cannot quite forget

[ZaunköniG]

I cannot quite forget


Mortality is on me like the sleep
Of one who dreams on banks of pleasant flowers.
I hear the humming of gold-girdled hours
Whirling along the sunshine, feel the deep

and shadowy stillness into which they creep,
Dropping like honeyed bees into their bowers.
Such gracious dreams brings this long sleep of ours,
Such gracious dreams I know not how to weep.

The world I have forsaken for my dream.
A strange and lingering sweetness haunts me yet,
A visionary presence, and a light
Creeps 'twixt my eyelidd, like the slender beam
Piercing the filmy primrose, folded tight,
And wrapped in sleep, I cannot all forget.