Beauty retires; the blood out of the earth Shrinks, the stalk dries, lifeless November still Drops the brown husk of April's greenest birth. Through the thinned beech clump I can see the hill. So withers man, and though his life renews In Aprils of the soul, an autumn comes Which gives an end, not respite, to the thews That bore his soul through the world's martyrdoms. Then all the beauty will be out of mind, Part of man's store, that lies outside his brain, Touch to the dead and vision to the blind, Drink in the desert, bread, eternal grain; Part of the untilled field that beauty sows With flowers untold, where quickened spirit goes. Wherever beauty has been quick in clay Some effluence of it lives, a spirit dwells, Beauty that death can never take away, Mixed with the air that shakes the flower bells; So that by waters where the apples fall, Or in lone glens, or valleys full of flowers, Or in the streets where bloody tidings call, The haunting waits the mood that makes it ours. Then at a turn, a word, an act, a thought, Such difference comes, the spirit apprehends That place's glory, for where beauty fought Under the veil the glory never ends, But the still grass, the leaves, the trembling flower, Keep, through dead time, that everlasting hour. You are more beautiful than women are, Wiser than men, stronger than ribbéd death, Juster than Time, more constant than the star, Dearer than love, more intimate than breath; Having all art, all science, all control Over the still unsmithied, even as Time Cradles the generations of man's soul, You are the light to guide, the way to climb. So, having followed beauty, having bowed To wisdom and to death, to law, to power, I like a blind man stumble from the crowd Into the darkness of a deeper hour, Where in the lonely silence I may wait The prayed-for gleam--your hand upon the gate. Out of the barracks to the castle yard Those Roman soldiers came, buckling their gear; The word was passed that they were prison guard; The sergeant proved their dressing with his spear. Then, as the prisoner came, a wretch who bled Holding a cross, those nearest cursed his soul: He might have died some other time, they said, Not at high noon: the sergeant called the roll. Then, sloping spears, the files passed from the court Into the alleys, thrusting back the crowd, They cursed the bleeding man for stepping short; The drums beat time: the sergeant hummed aloud; The rabble closed behind: the soldiers cursed The prisoner's soul, the flies, their packs, their thirst.