Peter's Field

[Knows he who tills this lonely field     To reap its scanty corn,     What mystic fruit his acres yield     At midnight and at morn?]     That field by spirits bad and good,     By Hell and Heaven is haunted,     And every rood in the hemlock wood     I know is ground enchanted.     [In the long sunny afternoon     The plain was full of ghosts:     I wandered up, I wandered down,     Beset by pensive hosts.]     For in those lonely grounds the sun     Shines not as on the town,     In nearer arcs his journeys run,     And nearer stoops the moon.     There in a moment I have seen     The buried Past arise;     The fields of Thessaly grew green,     Old gods forsook the skies.     I cannot publish in my rhyme     What pranks the greenwood played;     It was the Carnival of time,     And Ages went or stayed.     To me that spectral nook appeared     The mustering Day of Doom,     And round me swarmed in shadowy troop     Things past and things to come.     The darkness haunteth me elsewhere;     There I am full of light;     In every whispering leaf I hear     More sense than sages write.     Underwoods were full of pleasance,     All to each in kindness bend,     And every flower made obeisance     As a man unto his friend.     Far seen, the river glides below,     Tossing one sparkle to the eyes:     I catch thy meaning, wizard wave;     The River of my Life replies.