No comfort stays with such a man as I,
No resting place amid the dew and dusk,
Whose head is filled with perilous enterprise
The endless quest of my wild fruitless love.
But these can tell how they have heard His voice,
Have seen His face in pure untroubled sleep,
Or when the twilight gathered on the hills
Or when the moon shone out beyond the sea!
Have I not seen them? Yet I pilgrimage
In desolation seeking after peace,
Learning how hard a thing it is to love.
There is a love that men find easily,
Familiar as the latch upon the door,
Dear as the curling smoke above the thatch—
But I have loved unto the uttermost
And know love in the desperate abyss,
In dereliction and in blasphemy!
And fly from God to find him, fill my eyes
With road-dust and with tears and starry hopes,
Ere I may search out Love unsearchable,
Eternal Truth and Goodness infinite,
And the ineffable Beauty that is God.
Empty of scorn and ceasing not to praise
The meanest stick and stone upon the earth,
I strive unto the stark Reality,
The Absolute grasped roundly in my hands.
Bitter and pitiless it is to love,
To feel the darkness gather round the soul,
Love’s abnegation for the sake of love,
To see my Templed symbols’ slow decay
Become of every ravenous weed the food,
Where bats beat hideous wings about the arch
And ruined roof, where ghosts of tragic kings
And sleek ecclesiastics come and go
Upon the shattered pavements of my creed.
Yet Mercy at the last shall lead me in,
The Bride immaculate and mystical
Tenderly guide my wayward feet to peace,
And show me love the likeness of a Man,
The Slave obedient unto death, the Lamb
Slain from the first foundations of the world,
The Word made flesh, the tender new-born Child
That is the end of all my heart’s desire.
Then shall my spirit, naked of its hopes,
Stripped of its love unto the very bone,
Sink simply into Love’s embrace and be
Made consummate of all its burning bliss.
SONNET FOR THE FIFTH OF OCTOBER
IF I had ridden horses in the lists,
Fought wars, gone pilgrimage to fabled lands,
Seen Pharaoh’s drinking cups of amethysts,
Held dead Queens’ secret jewels in my hands—
I would have laid my triumphs at your feet,
And worn with no ignoble pride my scars....
But I can only offer you, my sweet,
The songs I made on many a night of stars.
Yet have I worshipped honour, loving you;
Your graciousness and gentle courtesy,
With ringing and romantic trumpets blew
A mighty music through the heart of me,—
A joy as cleansing as the wind that fills
The open spaces on the sunny hills.