Let others bow before a God unknown Enshrined in words they dimly understand. Let every man make Paradise his own-- My Goddess breathes and leads me by the hand O hush! I dare not speak of it alone, ’Tis all too wonderful and strangely planned! IV Day after day my growing pinions beat Impatiently. Yet, in a place unclean I sought the dwarfed, the petty and obscene, And aped the clownish mummers of the street; Till suddenly the world grew strangely sweet, All eager at a touch, and thrilling-keen; With half-forgotten hands I strove unseen To mould a little planet at your feet. You spoke and there was light, and slowly grew My teeming world of verse, a brotherhood Of music, thought, and wonder, born anew, Alive, aglow, in every varied mood. And when the waking truth is bursting through I feel you bend to see that all is good. V If I had seen what hourly happiness In this my world your being could ordain, How then should I have trysted with distress And misery the cringing friend of pain? If I had seen beyond the looming years Your shadow, grief had haunted me in vain, For what are cataracts of human tears Beside the boundless laughter of the main? O barren days bygone! Now every field Wakes clamorous with dawning life conceived, So has the magic universe revealed Whole happiness to one who half believed-- Whole happiness, and in my heart concealed Wide wonder at the sacrament received. VI “Great men and happy years,” you say from these Your knowledge came, and your diviner powers More thrilling than the honey-womb of flowers Or the bright star-foam of the Pleiades. So, did you learn the droning lore of bees From some be-medalled soldier? Did you meet Madonna-hearted statesmen in the street, Or bishops, babbling of the opal seas? O poor deceiver, conscript joys belong To you as homage. For the happy years Bear fruit to-day, and blossom like the flowers That breathe of summertime in after hours. For you were loyal to a creed of Song Nor ever stooped to misery and tears. VII Would I could throw my stuttering self away And shrine the soul wherein all wonders beat, Would I were you, for one brief holiday The whole shy universe before my feet. O happiness, to know joy’s secret mine, To hold adoring ministers in fee, Narcissus-like to bless the Serpentine And with the stars outdance Terpsichore. For once a poet sang of happiness, But now, like running flame, glad voices say-- “Joy is the sheer antithesis of wrong.” Enough,--and I, no longer comradeless, Behold exultant on the world’s highway Your being, and the proof of Pippa’s song. VIII