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? | |