"'I am content to feel the step
Of each pure image: let those keep
To mandragore who care to sleep.
"'I am content to touch the brink
Of the other goblet and I think
My bitter drink a wholesome drink.
"'Because my portion was assigned
Wholesome and bitter, Thou art kind,
And I am blessed to my mind.
"'Gifted for giving, I receive
The maythorn and its scent outgive:
I grieve not that I once did grieve.
"'In my large joy of sight and touch
Beyond what others count for such,
I am content to suffer much.
"'I know—is all the mourner saith,
Knowledge by suffering entereth,
And Life is perfected by Death.'"
The child spake nobly: strange to hear,
His infantine soft accents clear
Charged with high meanings, did appear;
And fair to see, his form and face
Winged out with whiteness and pure grace
From the green darkness of the place.
Behind his head a palm-tree grew;
An orient beam which pierced it through
Transversely on his forehead drew
The figure of a palm-branch brown
Traced on its brightness up and down
In fine fair lines,—a shadow-crown: