ON THE DEATH OF FRANCIS THOMPSON
I
How grandly glow the bays
Purpureally enwound
With those rich thorns, the brows
How infinitely crowned
That now thro' Death's dark house
Have passed with royal gaze:
Purpureally enwound
How grandly glow the bays.
II
Sweet, sweet and three-fold sweet,
Pulsing with three-fold pain,
Where the lark fails of flight
Soared the celestial strain;
Beyond the sapphire height
Flew the gold-wingèd feet,
Beautiful, pierced with pain,
Sweet, sweet and three-fold sweet;
III
And where Is not and Is
Are wed in one sweet Name,
And the world's rootless vine
With dew of stars a-flame
Laughs, from those deep divine
Impossibilities,
Our reason all to shame—
This cannot be, but is;
IV
Into the Vast, the Deep
Beyond all mortal sight,
The Nothingness that conceived
The worlds of day and night, The Nothingness that heaved
Pure sides in virgin sleep,
Brought out of Darkness, light;
And man from out the Deep.