Poetry Revisited: I Rose From Dreamless Hours by James Elroy Flecker

I Rose from Dreamless Hours

(from Forty-Two Poems: 1911)

I rose from dreamless hours and sought the morn
That beat upon my window : from the sill
I watched sweet lands, where Autumn light newborn
Swayed through the trees and lingered on the hill.
If things so lovely are, why labour still
To dream of something more than this I see ?
Do I remember tales of Galilee,
I who have slain my faith and freed my will ?
Let me forget dead faith, dead mystery,
Dead thoughts of things I cannot comprehend.
Enough the light mysterious in the tree,
Enough the friendship of my chosen friend.

James Elroy Flecker (1884-1915)
English poet, novelist and playwright