Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems including a Reprint of Echoes from Theocritus: By Wilfred Austin Gill: With a Critical Estimate of the Sonnets by the late John Addington Symonds |
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 | Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems |  |
144
XCIII
SAINTS
O Saints, dear Saints, so present, yet so far!
I cannot touch you with my hand, or trace
The aspect of your strength, your faith, your grace;
Between us lie the years,—the gulf, the bar.
But as one tracks the starlight to the star,
And finds no dark nor flame-forsaken space
To fret the beauty of its burning face,
Because the splendour swallows blot and scar;
So Time has framed you with an aureole
More circle-rounded than your age foreknew;
No frailty now can quench that fire of soul!
The things ye willed, and did not, those ye do;
The gifts ye strove for, in my sight are true;
Your perfect parts have made perfection whole.
| Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems | |