The Golden Touch

THE amber dust of sunset fills
The limits of my narrow room,
And every sterile shadow thrills
To golden hope, to golden bloom.

Sweet through the splendour, shrill and sweet,
Somewhere a neighbouring cage-bird sings,
Sings of the Spring in this grey street
While golden glories gild his wings.

Clothed with the sun he breaks to song—
In vague remembrance, deep delight—
Of dim green worlds, forsaken long,
Of leaf-hung dawn and dewy night.

My prisoning bars, transfigured too,
Fade with the day, forsworn, forgot—
Melt in a golden mist—and you
Are here, although you know it not.