Written at the age of sixteen. Where is that light—that citadel? That robe with woof of glory? She lost her virtue and she fell, And only left her story. SPIRITUAL ISOLATION: A FRAGMENT My Maker shunneth me: Even as a wretch stricken with leprosy, So hold I pestilent supremacy. Yea! He hath fled far as the uttermost star, Beyond the unperturbed fastnesses of night And dreams that bastioned are By fretted towers of sleep that scare His light. Of wisdom writ, whereto My burdened feet may haste withouten rue, I may not spell—and I am sore to do. Yea, all (seeing my Maker hath such dread), Even mine own self-love, wists not but to fly To Him, and sore besped Leaves me, its captain, in such mutiny. Will, deemed incorporate With me, hath flown ere love, to expiate Its sinful stay where He did habitate. Ah me, if they had left a sepulchre; But no—the light hath changed not, and in it Of its same colour stir Spirits I see not but phantasmed feel to flit. Air, legioned with such, stirreth, So that I seem to draw them with my breath, Ghouls that devour each joy they do to death, Strange glimmering griefs and sorrowing silences Bearing dead flowers unseen whose charnel smell Great awe to my sense is Even in the rose-time when all else is well. * * * * * FAR AWAY By what pale light or moon-pale shore Drifts my soul in lonely flight? Regions God had floated o’er Ere He touched the world with light? Not in Heaven and not in earth Is this water, is this moon; For there is no starry birth, And no dawning and no noon. Far away—O far away, Mist-born—dewy vapours rise From the dim gates of the day Far below in earthly skies. SPRING I walk and I wonder To hear the birds sing; Without you, my lady, How can there be Spring? I see the pink blossoms That slept for a year, But who could have waked them While you were not near?