Sonnet

I sought on earth a garden of delight,Or island altar to the Sea and Air,Where gentle music were accounted prayer,And reason, veiled, performed the happy rite.My sad youth worshipped at the piteous heightWhere God vouchsafed the death of man to share;His love made mortal sorrow light to bear,But his deep wounds put joy to shamèd flight.And though his arms, outstretched upon the tree,Were beautiful, and pleaded my embrace,My sins were loth to look upon his face.So came I down from Golgotha to thee,Eternal Mother; let the sun and seaHeal me, and keep me in thy dwelling-place.

Slow and reluctant was the long descent,With many farewell pious looks behind,And dumb misgivings where the path might wind,And questionings of nature, as I went.The greener branches that above me bent,The broadening valleys, quieted my mind,To the fair reasons of the Spring inclinedAnd to the Summer's tender argument.But sometimes, as revolving night descended,And in my childish heart the new song ended,I lay down, full of longing, on the steep;And, haunting still the lonely way I wended,Into my dreams the ancient sorrow blended,And with these holy echoes charmed my sleep.

O world, thou choosest not the better part!It is not wisdom to be only wise,And on the inward vision close the eyes,But it is wisdom to believe the heart.Columbus found a world, and had no chart,Save one that faith deciphered in the skies;To trust the soul's invincible surmiseWas all his science and his only art.Our knowledge is a torch of smoky pineThat lights the pathway but one step aheadAcross a void of mystery and dread.Bid, then, the tender light of faith to shineBy which alone the mortal heart is ledUnto the thinking of the thought divine.

I would I had been born in nature's day,When man was in the world a wide-eyed boy,And clouds of sorrow crossed his sky of joyTo scatter dewdrops on the buds of May.Then could he work and love and fight and pray,Nor heartsick grow in fortune's long employ.Mighty to build and ruthless to destroyHe lived, while masked death unquestioned lay.Now ponder we the ruins of the years,And groan beneath the weight of boasted gain;No unsung bacchanal can charm our earsAnd lead our dances to the woodland fane,No hope of heaven sweeten our few tearsAnd hush the importunity of pain.

Dreamt I to-day the dream of yesternight,Sleep ever feigning one evolving theme,--Of my two lives which should I call the dream?Which action vanity? which vision sight?Some greater waking must pronounce aright,If aught abideth of the things that seem,And with both currents swell the flooded streamInto an ocean infinite of light.Even such a dream I dream, and know full wellMy waking passeth like a midnight spell,But know not if my dreaming breaketh throughInto the deeps of heaven and of hell.I know but this of all I would I knew:Truth is a dream, unless my dream is true.

Love not as do the flesh-imprisoned menWhose dreams are of a bitter bought caress,Or even of a maiden's tendernessWhom they love only that she loves again.For it is but thyself thou lovest then,Or what thy thoughts would glory to possess;But love thou nothing thou wouldst love the lessIf henceforth ever hidden from thy ken.Love but the formless and eternal WholeFrom whose effulgence one unheeded rayBreaks on this prism of dissolving clayInto the flickering colours of thy soul.These flash and vanish; bid them not to stay,For wisdom brightens as they fade away.

I would I might forget that I am I,And break the heavy chain that binds me fast,Whose links about myself my deeds have cast.What in the body's tomb doth buried lieIs boundless; 'tis the spirit of the sky,Lord of the future, guardian of the past,And soon must forth, to know his own at last.In his large life to live, I fain would die.Happy the dumb beast, hungering for food,But calling not his suffering his own;Blessed the angel, gazing on all good,But knowing not he sits upon a throne;Wretched the mortal, pondering his mood,And doomed to know his aching heart alone.

O martyred Spirit of this helpless Whole,Who dost by pain for tyranny atone,And in the star, the atom, and the stone,Purgest the primal guilt, and in the soul;Rich but in grief, thou dost thy wealth unroll,And givest of thy substance to thine own,Mingling the love, the laughter, and the groanIn the large hollow of the heaven's bowl.Fill full my cup; the dregs and honeyed brimI take from thy just hand, more worthy loveFor sweetening not the draught for me or him.What in myself I am, that let me prove;Relent not for my feeble prayer, nor dimThe burning of thine altar for my hymn.

Have patience; it is fit that in this wiseThe spirit purge away its proper dross.No endless fever doth thy watches toss,For by excess of evil, evil dies.Soon shall the faint world melt before thine eyes,And, all life's losses cancelled by life's loss,Thou shalt lay down all burdens on thy cross,And be that day with God in Paradise.Have patience; for a long eternityNo summons woke thee from thy happy sleep;For love of God one vigil thou canst keepAnd add thy drop of sorrow to the sea.Having known grief, all will be well with thee,Ay, and thy second slumber will be deep.

Have I the heart to wander on the earth,So patient in her everlasting course,Seeking no prize, but bowing to the forceThat gives direction and hath given birth?Rain tears, sweet Pity, to refresh my dearth,And plough my sterile bosom, sharp Remorse,That I grow sick and curse my being's sourceIf haply one day passes lacking mirth.Doth the sun therefore burn, that I may bask?Or do the tired earth and tireless sea,That toil not for their pleasure, toil for me?Amid the world's long striving, wherefore askWhat reasons were, or what rewards shall be?The covenant God gave us is a task.

Deem not, because you see me in the pressOf this world's children run my fated race,That I blaspheme against a proffered grace,Or leave unlearned the love of holiness.I honour not that sanctity the lessWhose aureole illumines not my face,But dare not tread the secret, holy placeTo which the priest and prophet have access.For some are born to be beatifiedBy anguish, and by grievous penance done;And some, to furnish forth the age's pride,And to be praised of men beneath the sun;And some are born to stand perplexed asideFrom so much sorrow--of whom I am one.

Mightier storms than this are brewed on earthThat pricks the crystal lake with summer showers.The past hath treasure of sublimer hours,And God is witness to their changeless worth.Big is the future with portentous birthOf battles numberless, and nature's powersOutdo my dreams of beauty in the flowers,And top my revels with the demons' mirth.But thou, glad river that hast reached the plain,Scarce wak'st the rushes to a slumberous sigh.The mountains sleep behind thee, and the mainAwaits thee, lulling an eternal painWith patience; nor doth Phoebe, throned on high,The mirror of thy placid heart disdain.

Sweet are the days we wander with no hopeAlong life's labyrinthine trodden way,With no impatience at the steep's delay,Nor sorrow at the swift-descended slope.Why this inane curiosity to gropeIn the dim dust for gems' unmeaning ray?Why this proud piety, that dares to prayFor a world wider than the heaven's cope?Farewell, my burden! No more will I bearThe foolish load of my fond faith's despair,But trip the idle race with careless feet.The crown of olive let another wear;It is my crown to mock the runner's heatWith gentle wonder and with laughter sweet.

There may be chaos still around the world,This little world that in my thinking lies;For mine own bosom is the paradiseWhere all my life's fair visions are unfurled.Within my nature's shell I slumber curled,Unmindful of the changing outer skies,Where now, perchance, some new-born Eros flies,Or some old Cronos from his throne is hurled.I heed them not; or if the subtle nightHaunt me with deities I never saw,I soon mine eyelid's drowsy curtain drawTo hide their myriad faces from my sight.They threat in vain; the whirlwind cannot aweA happy snow-flake dancing in the flaw.

A wall, a wall to hem the azure sphere,And hedge me in from the disconsolate hills!Give me but one of all the mountain rills,Enough of ocean in its voice I hear.Come no profane insatiate mortal nearWith the contagion of his passionate ills;The smoke of battle all the valleys fills,Let the eternal sunlight greet me here.This spot is sacred to the deeper soulAnd to the piety that mocks no more.In nature's inmost heart is no uproar,None in this shrine; in peace the heavens roll,In peace the slow tides pulse from shore to shore,And ancient quiet broods from pole to pole.

A thousand beauties that have never beenHaunt me with hope and tempt me to pursue;The gods, methinks, dwell just behind the blue;The satyrs at my coming fled the green.The flitting shadows of the grove betweenThe dryads' eyes were winking, and I knewThe wings of sacred Eros as he flewAnd left me to the love of things not seen.'Tis a sad love, like an eternal prayer,And knows no keen delight, no faint surcease.Yet from the seasons hath the earth increase,And heaven shines as if the gods were there.Had Dian passed there could no deeper peaceEmbalm the purple stretches of the air.

There was a time when in the teeth of fateI flung the challenge of the spirit's right;The child, the dreamer of that visioned night,Woke, and was humbled unto man's estate.A slave I am; on sun and moon I wait,Who heed not that I live upon their light.Me they despise, but are themselves so brightThey flood my heart with love, and quench my hate.O subtle Beauty, sweet persuasive worthThat didst the love of being first inspire,We do thee homage both in death and birth.Thirsting for thee, we die in thy great dearth,Or borrow breath of infinite desireTo chase thine image through the haunted earth.

Blaspheme not love, ye lovers, nor dispraiseThe wise divinity that makes you blind,Sealing the eyes, but showing to the mindThe high perfection from which nature strays.For love is God, and in unfathomed waysBrings forth the beauty for which fancy pined.I loved, and lost my love among mankind;But I have found it after many days.Oh, trust in God, and banish rash despair,That, feigning evil, is itself the curse!My angel is come back, more sad and fair,And witness to the truth of love I bear,With too much rapture for this sacred verse,At the exceeding answer to my prayer.

Above the battlements of heaven riseThe glittering domes of the gods' golden dwelling,Whence, like a constellation, passion-quelling,The truth of all things feeds immortal eyes.There all forgotten dreams of paradiseFrom the deep caves of memory upwelling,All tender joys beyond our dim foretellingAre ever bright beneath the flooded skies.There we live o'er, amid angelic powers,Our lives without remorse, as if not ours,And others' lives with love, as if our own;For we behold, from those eternal towers,The deathless beauty of all winged hours,And have our being in their truth alone.

These strewn thoughts, by the mountain pathway sprung,I conned for comfort, till I ceased to grieve,And with these flowering thorns I dare to weaveThe crown, great Mother, on thine altar hung.Teach thou a larger speech to my loosed tongue,And to mine opened eyes thy secrets give,That in thy perfect love I learn to live,And in thine immortality be young.The soul is not on earth an alien thingThat hath her life's rich sources otherwhere;She is a parcel of the sacred air.She takes her being from the breath of Spring,The glance of Phoebus is her fount of light,And her long sleep a draught of primal night.

Among the myriad voices of the SpringWhat were the voice of my supreme desire,What were my cry amid the vernal choir,Or my complaint before the gods that sing?O too late love, O flight on wounded wing,Infinite hope my lips should not suspire,Why, when the world is thine, my grief require,Or mock my dear-bought patience with thy sting?Though I be mute, the birds will in the boughsSing as in every April they have sung,And, though I die, the incense of heart-vowsWill float to heaven, as when I was young.But, O ye beauties I must never see,How great a lover have you lost in me!

'Tis love that moveth the celestial spheresIn endless yearning for the Changeless One,And the stars sing together, as they runTo number the innumerable years.'Tis love that lifteth through their dewy tearsThe roses' beauty to the heedless sun,And with no hope, nor any guerdon won,Love leads me on, nor end of love appears.For the same breath that did awake the flowers,Making them happy with a joy unknown,Kindled my light and fixed my spirit's goal;And the same hand that reined the flying hoursAnd chained the whirling earth to Phoebus' throne,In love's eternal orbit keeps the soul.

But is this love, that in my hollow breastGnaws like a silent poison, till I faint?Is this the vision that the haggard saintFed with his vigils, till he found his rest?Is this the hope that piloted thy quest,Knight of the Grail, and kept thy heart from taint?Is this the heaven, poets, that ye paint?Oh, then, how like damnation to be blest!This is not love: it is that worser thing--Hunger for love, while love is yet to learn.Thy peace is gone, my soul; thou long must yearn.Long is thy winter's pilgrimage, till springAnd late home-coming; long ere thou returnTo where the seraphs covet not, and burn.

Although I decked a chamber for my bride,And found a moonlit garden for the trystWherein all flowers looked happy as we kissed,Hath the deep heart of me been satisfied?The chasm 'twixt our spirits yawns as wideThough our lips meet, and clasp thee as I list,The something perfect that I love is missed,And my warm worship freezes into pride.But why--O waywardness of nature!--whySeek farther in the world? I had my choice,And we said we were happy, you and I.Why in the forest should I hear a cry,Or in the sea an unavailing voice,Or feel a pang to look upon the sky?

As in the midst of battle there is roomFor thoughts of love, and in foul sin for mirth;As gossips whisper of a trinket's worthSpied by the death-bed's flickering candle-gloom;As in the crevices of Caesar's tombThe sweet herbs flourish on a little earth:So in this great disaster of our birthWe can be happy, and forget our doom.For morning, with a ray of tenderest joyGilding the iron heaven, hides the truth,And evening gently woos us to employOur grief in idle catches. Such is youth;Till from that summer's trance we wake, to findDespair before us, vanity behind.

Oh, if the heavy last unuttered groanThat lieth here could issue to the air,Then might God's peace descend on my despairAnd seal this heart as with a mighty stone.For what sin, Heaven, must I thus atone?Was it a sin to love what seemed so fair?If thou deny me hope, why give me care?I have not lived, and die alone, alone.This is not new. Many have perished so.Long years of nothing, with some days of grief,Made their sad life. Their own hand sought reliefToo late to find it, impotently slow.I know, strong Fate, the trodden way I go.Joy lies behind me. Be the journey brief.

Sleep hath composed the anguish of my brain,And ere the dawn I will arise and pray.Strengthen me, Heaven, and attune my layUnto my better angel's clear refrain.For I can hear him in the night again,The breathless night, snow-smothered, happy, grey,With premonition of the jocund day,Singing a quiet carol to my pain.Slowly, saith he, the April buds are growingIn the chill core of twigs all leafless now;Gently, beneath the weight of last night's snowing,Patient of winter's hand, the branches bow.Each buried seed lacks light as much as thou.Wait for the spring, brave heart; there is no knowing.

Out of the dust the queen of roses springs;The brackish depths of the blown waters bearBlossoms of foam; the common mist and airWeave Vesper's holy, pity-laden wings.So from sad, mortal, and unhallowed thingsBud stars that in their crowns the angels wear;And worship of the infinitely fairFlows from thine eyes, as wise Petrarca sings:"Hence comes the understanding of love's scope,That, seeking thee, to perfect good aspires,Accounting little what all flesh desires;And hence the spirit's happy pinions opeIn flight impetuous to the heaven's choirs:Wherefore I walk already proud in hope."

What riches have you that you deem me poor,Or what large comfort that you call me sad?Tell me what makes you so exceeding glad:Is your earth happy or your heaven sure?I hope for heaven, since the stars endureAnd bring such tidings as our fathers had.I know no deeper doubt to make me mad,I need no brighter love to keep me pure.To me the faiths of old are daily bread;I bless their hope, I bless their will to save,And my deep heart still meaneth what they said.It makes me happy that the soul is brave,And, being so much kinsman to the dead,I walk contented to the peopled grave.

Let my lips touch thy lips, and my desireContagious fever be, to set a-glowThe blood beneath thy whiter breast than snow--Wonderful snow, that so can kindle fire!Abandon to what gods in us conspireThy little wisdom, sweetest; for they know.Is it not something that I love thee so?Take that from life, ere death thine all require.But no! Then would a mortal warmth disperseThat beauteous snow to water-drops, which, turnedTo marble, had escaped the primal curse.Be still a goddess, till my heart have burnedIts sacrifice before thee, and my verseTold this late world the love that I have learned.

A brother's love, but that I chose thee outFrom all the world, not by the chance of birth,But in the risen splendour of thy worth,Which, like the sun, put all my stars to rout.A lover's love, but that it bred no doubtOf love returned, no heats of flood and dearth,But, asking nothing, found in all the earthThe consolation of a heart devout.A votary's love, though with no pale and wildImaginations did I stretch the mightOf a sweet friendship and a mortal light.Thus in my love all loves are reconciledThat purest be, and in my prayer the rightOf brother, lover, friend, and eremite.

Let not thy bosom, to my foes allied,Insult my sorrow with this coat of mail,When for thy strong defence, if love assail,Thou hast the world, thy virtue, and my pride.But if thine own dear eyes I see besideSharpened against me, then my strength will fail,Abandoning sail and rudder to the galeFor thy sweet sake alone so long defied.If I am poor, in death how rich and braveWill seem my spirit with the love it gave;If I am sad, I shall seem happy then.Be mine, be mine in God and in the grave,Since naught but chance and the insensate waveDivides us, and the wagging tongue of men.

A perfect love is nourished by despair.I am thy pupil in the school of pain;Mine eyes will not reproach thee for disdain,But thank thy rich disdain for being fair.Aye! the proud sorrow, the eternal prayerThy beauty taught, what shall unteach again?Hid from my sight, thou livest in my brain;Fled from my bosom, thou abidest there.And though they buried thee, and called thee dead,And told me I should never see thee more,The violets that grew above thy headWould waft thy breath and tell thy sweetness o'er,And every rose thy scattered ashes bredWould to my sense thy loveliness restore.

Though destiny half broke her cruel bars,Herself contriving we should meet on earth,And with thy beauty fed my spirit's dearthAnd tuned to love the ages' many jars,Yet there is potency in natal stars;And we were far divided in our birthBy nature's gifts and half the planet's girth,And speech, and faith, and blood, and ancient wars.Alas! thy very radiance made division,Thy youth, thy friends, and all men's eyes that wooedThy simple kindness came as in derisionOf so much love and so much solitude;Or did the good gods order all to showHow far the single strength of love can go?

We needs must be divided in the tomb,For I would die among the hills of Spain,And o'er the treeless melancholy plainAwait the coming of the final gloom.But thou--O pitiful!--wilt find scant roomAmong thy kindred by the northern main,And fade into the drifting mist again,The hemlocks' shadow, or the pines' perfume.Let gallants lie beside their ladies' dust,In one cold grave, with mortal love inurned;Let the sea part our ashes, if it must.The souls fled thence which love immortal burned,For they were wedded without bond of lust,And nothing of our heart to earth returned.

We were together, and I longed to tellHow drop by silent drop my bosom bled.I took some verses full of you, and read,Waiting for God to work some miracle.They told how love had plunged in burning hellOne half my soul, while the other half had fledUpon love's wings to heaven; and you said:"I like the verses; they are written well."If I had knelt confessing "It is you,You are my torment and my rapture too,"I should have seen you rise in flushed disdain:"For shame to say so, be it false or true!"And the sharp sword that ran me through and through,On your white bosom too had left a stain.

And I was silent. Now you do not know,But read these very words with vacant eyes,And, as you turn the page, peruse the skies,And I go by you as a cloud might go.You are not cruel, though you dealt the blow,And I am happy, though I miss the prize;For, when God tells you, you will not despiseThe love I bore you. It is better so.My soul is just, and thine without a stain.Why should not life divide us, whose divisionIs frail and passing, as its union vain?All things 'neath other planets will grow plainWhen, as we wander through the fields Elysian,Eternal echoes haunt us of this pain.

Oh, not for me, for thee, dear God, her headShines with this perfect golden aureole,For thee this sweetness doth possess her soul,And to thy chambers are her footsteps led.The light will live that on my path she shed,While any pilgrim yet hath any goal,And heavenly musicians from their scrollWill sing all her sweet words, when I am dead.In her unspotted heart is steadfast faithFed on high thoughts, and in her beauteous faceThe fountain of the love that conquers death;And as I see her in her kneeling-place,A Gabriel comes, and with inaudible breathWhispers within me: Hail, thou full of grace.

The world will say, "What mystic love is this?What ghostly mistress? What angelic friend?"Read, masters, your own passion to the end,And tell me then if I have writ amiss.When all loves die that hang upon a kiss,And must with cavil and with chance contend,Their risen selves with the eternal blendWhere perfect dying is their perfect bliss.And might I kiss her once, asleep or dead,Upon the forehead or the globed eyes,Or where the gold is parted on her head,That kiss would help me on to paradiseAs if I kissed the consecrated breadIn which the buried soul of Jesus lies.

If, when the story of my love is old,This book should live and lover's leisure feed,Fair charactered, for bluest eye to read,--And richly bound, for whitest hand to hold,--O limn me then this lovely head in gold,And, limner, the soft lips and lashes heed,And set her in the midst, my love indeed,The sweet eyes tender, and the broad brow cold.And never let thy colours think to castA brighter splendour on her beauties past,Or venture to disguise a fancied flaw;Let not thy painting falsify my rhyme,But perfect keep the mould for after time,And let the whole world see her as I saw.

Yet why, of one who loved thee not, commandThy counterfeit, for other men to see,When God himself did on my heart for meThy face, like Christ's upon the napkin, brand?O how much subtler than a painter's handIs love to render back the truth of thee!My soul should be thy glass in time to be,And in my thought thine effigy should stand.Yet, lest the churlish critics of that ageShould flout my praise, and deem a lover's rageCould gild a virtue and a grace exceed,I bid thine image here confront my page,That men may look upon thee as they read,And cry: Such eyes a better poet need.

As when the sceptre dangles from the handOf some king doting, faction runneth wild,Thieves shake their chains and traitors, long exiled,Hover about the confines of the land,Till the young Prince, anointed, takes command,Full of high purpose, simple, trustful, mild,And, smitten by his radiance undefiled,The ruffians are abashed, the cowards stand:--So in my kingdom riot and despairLived by thy lack, and called for thy control,But at thy coming all the world grew fair;Away before thy face the villains stole,And panoplied I rose to do and bear,When love his clarion sounded in my soul.

The candour of the gods is in thy gaze,The strength of Dian in thy virgin hand,Commanding as the goddess might command,And lead her lovers into higher ways.Aye, the gods walk among us in these days,Had we the docile soul to understand;And me they visit in this joyless land,To cheer mine exile and receive my praise.For once, methinks, before the angels fell,Thou, too, didst follow the celestial sevenThreading in file the meads of asphodel.And when thou comest, lady, where I dwell,The place is flooded with the light of heavenAnd a lost music I remember well.

For thee the sun doth daily rise, and setBehind the curtain of the hills of sleep,And my soul, passing through the nether deepBroods on thy love, and never can forget.For thee the garlands of the wood are wet,For thee the daisies up the meadow's sweepStir in the sidelong light, and for thee weepThe drooping ferns above the violet.For thee the labour of my studious easeI ply with hope, for thee all pleasures please,Thy sweetness doth the bread of sorrow leaven;And from thy noble lips and heart of goldI drink the comfort of the faiths of old,And thy perfection is my proof of heaven.

Flower of the world, bright angel, single friend!I never asked of Heaven thou shouldst love me;As well ask Heaven's self that spreads above meWith all his stars about my head to bendIt is enough my spirit may ascendAnd clasp the good whence nothing can remove me;Enough, if faith and hope and love approve me,And make me worthy of the blessed end.And as a pilgrim from the path withdraws,Seeing Christ carven on the holy rood,And breathes an AVE in the solitude,So will I stop and pray--for I have cause--And in all crossways of my thinking pauseBefore thine image, saying: God is good.

When I survey the harvest of the yearAnd from time's threshing garner up the grain,What profit have I of forgotten pain,What comfort, heart-locked, for the winter's cheer?The season's yield is this, that thou art dear,And that I love thee, that is all my gain;The rest was chaff, blown from the weary brainWhere now thy treasured image lieth clear.How liberal is beauty that, but seen,Makes rich the bosom of her silent lover!How excellent is truth, on which I lean!Yet my religion were a charmed despair,Did I not in thy perfect heart discoverHow beauty can be true and virtue fair.

Thou hast no name, or, if a name thou bearest,To none it meaneth what it means to me:Thy form, the loveliness the world can see,Makes not the glory that to me thou wearest.Nor thine unuttered thoughts, though they be fairestAnd shaming all that in rude bosoms be:All they are but the thousandth part of thee,Which thou with blessed spirits haply sharest.But incommunicable, peerless, dim,Flooding my heart with anguish of despair,Thou walkest, love, before me, shade of HimWho only liveth, giveth, and is fair.And constant ever, though inconstant known,In all my loves I worshipped thee alone.

Of Helen's brothers, one was born to dieAnd one immortal, who, the fable saith,Gave to the other that was nigh to deathOne half his widowed immortality.They would have lived and died alternately,Breathing each other's warm transmuted breath,Had not high Zeus, who justly ordereth,Made them twin stars to shine eternally.My heart was dying when thy flame of youthFlooded its chambers through my gazing eyes.My life is now thy beauty and thy truth.Thou wouldst come down, forsaking paradiseTo be my comfort, but by Heaven's ruthI go to burn beside thee in the skies.

After grey vigils, sunshine in the heart;After long fasting on the journey, food;After sharp thirst, a draught of perfect goodTo flood the soul, and heal her ancient smart.Joy of my sorrow, never can we part;Thou broodest o'er me in the haunted wood,And with new music fill'st the solitudeBy but so sweetly being what thou art.He who hath made thee perfect, makes me blest.O fiery minister, on mighty wingsBear me, great love, to mine eternal rest.Heaven it is to be at peace with things;Come chaos now, and in a whirlwind's ringsEngulf the planets. I have seen the best.

Though utter death should swallow up my hopeAnd choke with dust the mouth of my desire,Though no dawn burst, and no aurorean choirSing GLORIA DEO when the heavens ope,Yet have I light of love, nor need to gropeLost, wholly lost, without an inward fire;The flame that quickeneth the world entireLeaps in my breast, with cruel death to cope.Hath not the night-environed earth her flowers?Hath not my grief the blessed joy of thee?Is not the comfort of these singing hours,Full of thy perfectness, enough for me?They are not evil, then, those hidden powers:One love sufficeth an eternity.