O, who will shield me from her? Who will place A veil between me and the fierce in-throng Of her inexorable benedicite? See, I have loved her well and been with her! Through tragic twilights when the stricken sea Groveled with fear, or when she made her throne In imminent cities built of gorgeous winds And paved with lightnings; or when the sobering stars Would lead her home 'mid wealth of plundered May Along the violet slopes of evensong. Of all the sights that starred the dreamy year, For me one sight stood peerless and apart: Bright rivers tacit; low hills prone and dumb; Forests that hushed their tiniest voice to hear; Skies for the unutterable advent robed In purple like the opening iris buds; And by some lone expectant pool, one tree Whose gray boughs shivered with excess of awe,-- As with preluding gush of amber light, And herald trumpets softly lifted through, Across the palpitant horizon marge Crocus-filleted came the singing moon. Out of her changing lights I wove my youth A place to dwell in, sweet and spiritual, And all the bitter years of my exile My heart has called afar off unto her. Lo, after many days love finds its own! The futile adorations, the waste tears, The hymns that fluttered low in the false dawn, She has uptreasured as a lover's gifts; They are the mystic garment that she wears Against the bridal, and the crocus flowers She twined her brow with at the going forth; They are the burden of the song she made In coming through the quiet fields of space, And breathe between her passion-parted lips Calling me out along the flowering road Which summers through the dimness of the sea.