From childhood’s hours I have not been
As others were — I have not seen
As others saw — I could not bring
My passion from a common spring
From the Same source I have not taken
My sorrows; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then — In my childhood — In the dawn
Of a most stormy life — was dawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that ’round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightening in the sky
As it passed me flaying by—
From the thunder and the storm,
And the clouds that took form
When the rest of Heaven was blue
Of a demon in my view