My heart is man's heart, strong to bear this night's Unspeakable affliction of mute love That crazes lesser things. The rocks and clods Dissemble, feign a busy intercourse; The bushes deal in shadowy subterfuge, Lurk dull, dart spiteful out, make heartless signs, Utter awestricken purpose of no sense,-- But I walk quiet, crush aside the hands Stretched furtively to drag me madmen's ways. I know the thing they suffer, and the tricks They must be at to help themselves endure. I would not be too boastful; I am weak, Too weak to put aside the utter ache Of this lone splendor long enough to see Whether the moon is still her white strange self Or something whiter, stranger, even the face Which by the changed face of my risen youth Sang, globed in fire, her golden canticle. I dare not look again; another gaze Might drive me to the wavering coppice there, Where bat-winged madness brushed me, the wild laugh Of naked nature crashed across my blood. So rank it was with earthy presences, Faun-shapes in goatish dance, young witches' eyes Slanting deep invitation, whinnying calls Ambiguous, shocks and whirlwinds of wild mirth,-- They had undone me in the darkness there, But that within me, smiting through my lids Lowered to shut in the thick whirl of sense, The dumb light ached and rummaged, and with out, The soaring splendor summoned me aloud To leave the low dank thickets of the flesh Where man meets beast and makes his lair with him, For spirit reaches of the strenuous vast, Where stalwart stars reap grain to make the bread God breaketh at his tables and is glad. I came out in the moonlight cleansed and strong, And gazed up at the lyric face to see All sweetness tasted of in earthen cups Ere it be dashed and spilled, all radiance flung Beyond experience, every benison dream, Treasured and mystically crescent there.
O, who will shield me from her? Who will place A veil between me and the fierce in-throng Of her inexorable benedicite? See, I have loved her well and been with her! Through tragic twilights when the stricken sea Groveled with fear, or when she made her throne In imminent cities built of gorgeous winds And paved with lightnings; or when the sobering stars Would lead her home 'mid wealth of plundered May Along the violet slopes of evensong. Of all the sights that starred the dreamy year, For me one sight stood peerless and apart: Bright rivers tacit; low hills prone and dumb; Forests that hushed their tiniest voice to hear; Skies for the unutterable advent robed In purple like the opening iris buds; And by some lone expectant pool, one tree Whose gray boughs shivered with excess of awe,-- As with preluding gush of amber light, And herald trumpets softly lifted through, Across the palpitant horizon marge Crocus-filleted came the singing moon. Out of her changing lights I wove my youth A place to dwell in, sweet and spiritual, And all the bitter years of my exile My heart has called afar off unto her. Lo, after many days love finds its own! The futile adorations, the waste tears, The hymns that fluttered low in the false dawn, She has uptreasured as a lover's gifts; They are the mystic garment that she wears Against the bridal, and the crocus flowers She twined her brow with at the going forth; They are the burden of the song she made In coming through the quiet fields of space, And breathe between her passion-parted lips Calling me out along the flowering road Which summers through the dimness of the sea.