There was a Pleiad lost; where is she now? None knoweth,--O she reigns, it is my creed, Otherwhere dedicate to making day. The God of Gods, He doubtless looked to that Who wasteth never ought He fashionèd. I have no vision, but where vision fails Faith cheers, and truly, truly there is need, The god of this world being so unkind. O love! My girl for ever to the world Wanting. Lost, not that any one should find, But wasted for the sake of waste, and lost For love of man's undoing, of man's tears, By envy of the evil one; I mourn For thee, my golden girl, I mourn, I mourn. He set me free. And it befell anon That I must imitate him. Then 't befell That on the holy Book I read, and all, The mediating Mother and her Babe, God and the Church, and man and life and death, And the dark gulfs of bitter purging flame, Did take on alteration. Like a ship Cast from her moorings, drifting from her port, Not bound to any land, not sure of land, My dull'd soul lost her reckoning on that sea She sailed, and yet the voyage was nigh done. This God was not the God I had known; this Christ Was other. O, a gentler God, a Christ-- By a mother and a Father infinite-- In distance each from each made kin to me. Blest Sufferer on the rood; but yet, I say Other. Far gentler, and I cannot tell, Father, if you, or she, my golden girl, Or I, or any aright those mysteries read. I cannot fathom them. There is not time, So quickly men condemned me to this cell. I quarrell'd not so much with Holy Church For that she taught, as that my love she burned. I die because I hid her enemies, And read the Book. But O, forgiving God, I do elect to trust thee. I have thought, What! are there set between us and the sun Millions of miles, and did He like a tent Rear up yon vasty sky? Is heaven less wide? And dwells He there, but for His wingèd host, Almost alone? Truly I think not so; He has had trouble enough with this poor world To make Him as an earthly father would, Love it and value it more. He did not give So much to have us with Him, and yet fail. And now He knows I would believe e'en so As pleaseth Him, an there was time to learn Or certitude of heart; but time fails, time. He knoweth also 't were a piteous thing Not to be sure of my love's welfare--not To see her happy and good in that new home. Most piteous. I could all forego but this. O let me see her, Lord. What, also I! White ashes and a waft of vapour--I To flutter on before the winds. No, no. And yet for ever ay--my flesh shall hiss And I shall hear 't. Dreadful, unbearable! Is it to-morrow? Ay, indeed, indeed, To-morrow. But my moods are as great waves That rise and break and thunder down on me, And then fall'n back sink low. I have waked long And cannot hold my thoughts upon th' event; They slip, they wander forth. How the dusk grows.