| FAR off, most secret, and inviolate Rose, | |
| Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those | |
| Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre, | |
| Or in the wine vat, dwell beyond the stir | |
| And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep | |
| Among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep | |
| Men have named beauty. Thy great leaves enfold | |
| The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold | |
| Of the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyes | |
| Saw the Pierced Hands and Rood of elder rise | |
| In druid vapour and make the torches dim; | |
| Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him | |
| Who met Fand walking among flaming dew | |
| By a gray shore where the wind never blew, | |
| And lost the world and Emer for a kiss; | |
| And him who drove the gods out of their liss, | |
| And till a hundred morns had flowered red, | |
| Feasted and wept the barrows of his dead; | |
| And the proud dreaming king who flung the crown | |
| And sorrow away, and calling bard and clown | |
| Dwelt among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods; | |
| And him who sold tillage, and house, and goods, | |
| And sought through lands and islands numberless years, | |
| Until he found with laughter and with tears, | |
| A woman, of so shining loveliness, | |
| That men threshed corn at midnight by a tress, | |
| A little stolen tress. I, too, await | |
| The hour of thy great wind of love and hate. | |
| When shall the stars be blown about the sky, | |
| Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die? | |
| Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows, | |
| Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose? | |