The windy trammel of her dress, Her blown locks, took my soul in mesh. God's breath they spake, with visibleness That stirred the raiment of her flesh:
And sensible, as her blown locks were, Beyond the precincts of her form I felt the woman flow from her— A calm of intempestuous storm.
I failed against the affluent tide; Out of this abject earth of me I was translated and enskied Into the heavenly-regioned She.
Now of that vision I bereaven This knowledge keep, that may not dim:— Short arm needs man to reach to Heaven, So ready is Heaven to stoop to him;
Which sets, to measure of man's feet, No alien Tree for trysting-place; And who can read, may read the sweet Direction in his Lady's face.
TO A SNOW-FLAKE
What heart could have thought you?— Past our devisal (O filigree petal!) Fashioned so purely, Fragilely, surely, From what Paradisal Imagineless metal, Too costly for cost? Who hammered you, wrought you, From argentine vapour?— "God was my shaper. Passing surmisal, He hammered, He wrought me, From curled silver vapour, To lust of His mind:— Thou could'st not have thought me! So purely, so palely, Tinily, surely, Mightily, frailly, Insculped and embossed, With His hammer of wind, And His graver of frost."
ORIENT ODE
Lo, in the sanctuaried East, Day, a dedicated priest In all his robes pontifical exprest, Lifteth slowly, lifteth sweetly, From out its Orient tabernacle drawn, Yon orbèd sacrament confest Which sprinkles benediction through the dawn; And when the grave procession's ceased, The earth with due illustrious rite Blessed,—ere the frail fingers featly Of twilight, violet-cassocked acolyte, His sacerdotal stoles unvest— Sets, for high close of the mysterious feast, The sun in august exposition meetly Within the flaming monstrance of the West.
God, whom none may live and mark, Borne within thy radiant ark!— While the Earth, a joyous David, Dances before thee from the dawn to dark. The moon, O leave, pale ruined Eve; Behold her fair and greater daughter [C] Offers to thee her fruitful water, Which at thy first white Ave shall conceive! Thy gazes do on simple her Desirable allures confer; What happy comelinesses rise Beneath thy beautifying eyes! Who was, indeed, at first a maid Such as, with sighs, misgives she is not fair, And secret views herself afraid, Till flatteries sweet provoke the charms they swear: Yea, thy gazes, blissful lover, Make the beauties they discover! What dainty guiles and treacheries caught From artful prompting of love's artless thought Her lowly loveliness teach her to adorn, When thy plumes shiver against the conscious gates of morn!