I went down by the waters, and a bird Sang with your voice in all the unknown tones Of all that self of you I have not heard, So that my being felt you to the bones. I went into the house, and shut the door To be alone, but you were there with me; All beauty in a little room may be, Though the roof lean and muddy be the floor. Then in my bed I bound my tired eyes To make a darkness for my weary brain; But like a presence you were there again, Being and real, beautiful and wise, So that I could not sleep, and cried aloud, “You strange grave thing, what is it you would say?” The redness of your dear lips dimmed to grey, The waters ebbed, the moon hid in a cloud. 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. Not for the anguish suffered is the slur, Not for the woman’s taunts, the mocks of men; No, but because you never welcomed her, Her of whose beauty I am only the pen. There was a dog, dog-minded, with dog’s eyes, Damned by a dog’s brute-nature to be true. Something within her made his spirit wise; He licked her hand, he knew her; not so you. When all adulterate beauty has gone by, When all inanimate matter has gone down, We will arise and walk, that dog and I, The only two who knew her in the town. We’ll range the pleasant mountain side by side, Seeking the blood-stained flowers where Christs have died. You will remember me in days to come, With love, or pride, or pity, or contempt, So will my friends (not many friends, yet some), When this my life will be a dream out-dreamt; And one, remembering friendship by the fire, And one, remembering love time in the dark, And one, remembering unfulfilled desire, Will sigh, perhaps, yet be beside the mark; For this my body with its wandering ghost Is nothing solely but an empty grange, Dark in a night that owls inhabit most, Yet when the King rides by there comes a change The windows gleam, the cresset’s fiery hair Blasts the blown branch and beauty lodges there. If Beauty be at all, if, beyond sense, There be a wisdom piercing into brains, Why should the glory wait on impotence, Biding its time till blood is in the veins?