MIRABILE DICTU
I
There dwells a goddess in the West,
An Island in death-lonesome seas;
No towered towns are hers confessed,
No castled forts or palaces;
Hers, simple worshipers at best,
The buds, the birds, the bees.
II
And she hath wonder-words of song,
So heavenly beautiful and shed
So sweetly from her honeyed tongue,
The savage creatures, it is said,
Hark, marble-still, their wilds among,
And nightingales fall dead.
III
I know her not, nor have I known:
I only feel that she is there:
For when my heart is most alone,
Her deep communion fills the air,—
Her influence calls me from my own,—
Miraculously fair.
IV
Then fain am I to sing and sing,
And then again to fly and fly,
Beyond the flight of cloud or wing,
Far under azure arcs of sky;
My love at her chaste feet to fling,
Behold her face and—die.
