WHY do I make no poems? Good my friend Now is there silence through the summer woods, In whose green depths and lawny solitudes The light is dreaming; voicings clear ascend Now from no hollow where glad rivulets wend, But murmurings low of inarticulate moods, Softer than stir of unfledged cushat broods, Breathe, till o'er drowsed the heavy flower-heads bend. Now sleep the crystal and heart-charmed waves Round white, sunstricken rocks the noontide long, Or 'mid the coolness of dim lighted caves Sway in a trance of vague deliciousness; And I,--I am too deep in joy's excess For the imperfect impulse of a song.