The collected poems of Arthur Edward Waite in two volumes ... With a Portrait |
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 | The collected poems of Arthur Edward Waite |  |
32
LOSS AND GAIN
We lost it long ago; we dream not how,We know not where. The spirit—with a brow
Which high thoughts hallow'd, full of peace in them—
Wore, as some say, its royal diadem;
But crowns are nothing to the soul, and this
High legend only or a symbol is.
Ah, friends! What, therefore, did we lose and why?
Was it our home beyond the far blue sky?
But home is only where the soul, above
These anxious ways, finds sleep of perfect love,
While the same heaven which draws our hearts, we know,
Extends not more above us than below.
Whence, therefore, this so dimly understood
Yet haunting sense within us of the good
Wherein we once rejoiced; which evermore
Through mournful ways of life we now deplore?
Ah, if the heart could learn, the heart might find!
Or, at least, less inhibited and blind,
Move on more conscious where the ways direct,
What to avoid aware and what expect.
Here is the measure of our loss—perchance
One gain is theirs who thus in dark advance
As best they can, peering with hoodwink'd eyes:
Light comes at last more splendid, and surprise
The sweeter, for the gloom and its dismay,
When night in fine and hoodwinks pass away:
A hand has guided and a hand shall lead
Till loss be loss no more, but gain indeed.
| The collected poems of Arthur Edward Waite | |