To a Mist
Up from the river, softly stealing,
by wanton breezes rent and torn,
Half concealing, yet, half revealing,
The glories of an early dawn,
The mist sprite draws her gossamer veils
O’er the wakening face of earth
As on the wings of the wind she sails
Clouding the sunlight’s birth
Clammy, damp, bewildering,
Thou art as light as thought,
Folding us in a fairy ring,
Making our vision nought.
Bedewing all the flowers and leaves,
With gems of priceless cost,
From us these favours thou dost retrieve,
They, with the rising sun, are lost.
In billowing waves thous dost ascend,
Unto an unknown height
Waiting till time to re-descend,
At dawn of day, at close of night:
No-one knows how thou dost go,
Or when, or why, or where,
We only know, that here below,
Thou changest into air
The magpies are in the leafy trees,
Heralding the dawn with notes divine,
Up the vale thy slow approach they see;
How, over all you slowly climb,
O’er-whelming in thy chilly grasp
Rocks, stones, trees, both far and near,
At thy touch they seem to gasp,
To sink, and disappear.
*****
Written by Wilfred Butler in September 1924.