But there shall issue through the ivory gate,
Amid a mist of dreams, one dream-come-true,
Beauty immortal, mighty of estate,
The beauty that a poet loved in you;
The goodness God has set as aureole
Upon the naked meekness of your soul.
BEAUTY
II
(ABSOLUTE)
WHO shall take Beauty in her citadel?
Her gates will splinter not to battering days;
Her slender spires can bear the onslaught well.
Shall any track her through her secret ways
To snare the pinions of the golden bird?
A feather falling through the jewelled air,
Only the echo of a lovely word—
Nowhere her being is, and everywhere.
But one may come at last through many woes
And pain and hunger to his resting place,
The watered garden of the Mystic Rose,
The contemplation of the Bruisèd Face—
The quest of all his wild, adventurous pride;
And, seeing Beauty, shall be satisfied.
FAITH’S DIFFICULTY
Not these appal
The soul tip-toeing to belief:
The ribald call,
The last black anguish of the thief;
The fellowship
Of publican and Pharisee,
The harlot’s lip
Passionate with humility;