TO AN OPAL

Wrapt in the radiant air’s own milky tress, That’s less than cloud and more than cloudlessness, Dawn-light and moon-light art thou; dreaming fire, That dies along the west: a pulse; a pyre Burning beneath the brow of some red eave; The very staple that the salt winds weave Into the vaporous east, or sobbing south, When some grey hurricane sucks at the mouth Of the dear, wild-haired sea, and with huge mirth Rains back his rape of kisses on the earth. The blooms of old-world flow’rs in ancient garths; The dancing aureole of winter hearths; The argent flame that haunts eternal snows; Spray of the burn and petal of the rose; Gleam of the dragon-fly or halcyon’s wing; The dew-bedappled kirtle of the Spring; The amber ripple of the kerning corn; Splendour of fruit; where ripeness, like a morn, Breaks through the bloom; the rainbow’s liquid light; The northern dancers of an arctic night; Nacre of pearl and foam upon the sea— All these, thou glimmering epitome Of the world’s glory, throb and nestle here Within the little compass of a tear.