A dwelling in the heart of God. I latched the gate at dawn of day, I planted poppies by the door, To His retreats I came away And I shall wander thence no more. The windy heights are all my love, The spheral lights, the spheral chimes, The trailing fires, the hosts that move In concourse through sidereal climes; I troop with the celestial choirs; We have not any wish to be Sad pilgrims, torn by sad desires, Wayfarers of mortality. The husk of flesh we have put by; The dark seeds planted in the earth Have blossomed in the upper sky, In airy gardens have new birth." There did he make an end, for O Those spirits, singing, darted by again, And at the showering sound he trembled so I saw his earthly dalliance gave him pain, And cried in sorrow, "O my friend, farewell! Now from the luminous, paradisal bands, Gabriel, Israfel, Ithuriel, Beckon to you with their exulting hands." THE WITHERED LEAF, THE FADED FLOWER BE MINE The withered leaf, the faded flower be mine, The broken shrine, All things that knowing beauty for a day Have passed away To dwell in the illimitable wood Of quietude, Undying, radiant, young, Passed years among. No blighting wind upon their beauty blows, The altar glows With flames unquenchable and bright By day, by night; Secure from envious time's deflowering breath They know no death, But silently, imperishably fair, Grow lovelier there. He who adores too much the impending hour, The budding flower, Who knows not with what dyes an hour that's dead Is garmented, Who walks with glimmering shapes companionless, He cannot guess With how great love and thankfulness I praise The yesterdays. * * * * * CUTHBERT WRIGHT THE END OF IT We met, and on the decorous drive touched hands, "Good-bye; a pleasant trip to you," I said. The sunlight slept upon the still uplands, Your figure fading in the dusty red I watched awhile, then turned with casual face To where a torrent glimmered down a glade, No human voice troubled the lovely place, Only the fall a cruel music made. A time I lay and marked with curious stare The keen sun-lances quiver on the lawn, And thought on shrines all voiceless now and bare, The holy genius of their boughs withdrawn, Till with hoarse cry the train that you were on Stabbed the indifference of the empty air ... Then I awoke and knew that you were gone. THE NEW PLATONIST _Circa 1640_ Our loves as flowers fall to dust; The noblest singing hath an end; No man to his own soul may trust, Nor to the kind arms of his friend; Yet have I glimpsed by lonely tree, Bright baths of immortality. My faultless teachers bid me fare The cypress path of blood and tears, Treading the thorny wold to where The painful Cross of Christ appears; 'Twas on another, sunnier hill I met you first, my miracle.