Matin Bells and Scarlet and Gold :: :: University of Virginia Library

Sunlight never shone into her shadowed eyes
With one glimmer sweet,
And the rainbow's feet
Strode not for her once across the earth and skies;
Nowhere did she meet
Angels coming out of the eternities;
Not to her our vision
Opes in dim derision
Gates of pearl in Paradise, where shining shapes
Cheat with kisses cold
And enchanted gold
Dreams that think the very thorns are purple grapes.

Dearly still I loved her wandering through the night
One with laughing day,
On her shrouded way,
Darkly stretching to the unarisen light
Fingers formed to pray,
In the simple faith more beautiful than sight;
For the lamp she kindled
Grew, though others dwindled,
On the secret sources glowing in the mind;
By some higher law,
She it was who saw,
While I groped among mere phantoms and was blind.

Now she guides my path and I begin to see
Something of the road,
And without the load
Laid upon me once rejoice that I am free,
Nor require the goad

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Of an earthly passion, when I dare to be;
For her pure affection
Trusting is direction,
And I humbly follow still where'er she leads
On the awful ice,
Past the precipice,
Knowing not the inner gospel that she reads.

Some day with her revelation I shall gaze
On the treasures hid
As with coffin lid
From me by the dead world's thick distorting haze;
And, though fate forbid
Now, I yet shall triumph from this mocking maze;
With her conquering kindness
And illumined blindness
Filled and fired I yet shall reach the farther shore,
Where our day is night
And the love is sight
And it is enough to tremble and adore.