 | The Collected Poems of Philip Bourke Marston |  |
330
LOST SOULS.
Ah, fair, lost Love, I thought once to make mine,
Till you chose God, and turned your face away!
Not cruelly, but firmly did you say:
“I must be God's, none other's, — at no shrine
But His bow knee; God only is divine.”
And so you left me, and behold, to-day,
While fair among the rest you chant and pray
Where fumes the incense and the tapers shine,
Till you chose God, and turned your face away!
Not cruelly, but firmly did you say:
“I must be God's, none other's, — at no shrine
But His bow knee; God only is divine.”
And so you left me, and behold, to-day,
While fair among the rest you chant and pray
Where fumes the incense and the tapers shine,
I, who with you had walked unblamed as most,
I, whom you cast off in your heavenly zeal,
See my own face, grown old before its time,
Scarred deep by grief and many an unguessed crime,—
My own lost soul, and those my soul has lost
At the last day against you shall appeal.
I, whom you cast off in your heavenly zeal,
See my own face, grown old before its time,
Scarred deep by grief and many an unguessed crime,—
My own lost soul, and those my soul has lost
At the last day against you shall appeal.
| The Collected Poems of Philip Bourke Marston | |