It was fulfilled. The giant _dhow_ bestirred Herself, burst from her slender moorings, ran Exulting on her course beyond the green Thin shallows to the deeper violet Of that great gem wherein the continents Are flaws. With creaking oars and fluttering sails The wingèd ghost swept outward. On the prow Unveiled the Queen stood whiter than the sails, And save the revelation made no sign; And all the sound of singing was brought low. Then, as the vision vanished in the hushed Twilight that painted out the caravan, Leaving the pilgrims but a _burnûs_-blur On the drab canvas of the shore, a wail Rose, and to them the Dreamer's last reply: "The aimless spindrift mingles with the scats Where suddenly the desert is the beach. A low wind whimpers up and down the flats Seeking some obstacle to lend it speech. "The sky bleeds pale as from a mortal wound, Darkening the waters. To a treble E Gulls stiffly wheel their nomad escort round A white sail dwindling in the impassive sea. "A last beam smites it with a benison. The lantern twinkles fainter at its mast. It bears the purpose in me that is gone, The only thing that cannot be, the past. "Let there be night. Shall evensong complain? My love was utter. Now I seek no sign. Mine eyes have seen, and shall not see again. Out of the deep shall call no voice of mine. "Yet I, whose happiness is hidden from view, Have climbed the hill and touched eternity, And Pisgah is a memory--of you, A white sail sinking in the summer sea." The ship drove spaceward to the skyline's crater, The last of day flared vibrant as a cry, And in the Dreamer Emptiness loomed greater Than the unrifted pumice of the sky. He turned to see the friends whose hope had ended Like his beside the gulf. He was alone. The singers and the glory that had blended With meaner notes and lowly, all were gone Into thin air. But, patient of his tether, Enduring as the dream he would not break, Only old Tous remained. As back together They fared, once more it seemed the camel spake: "Lo, these the fleeting and the true, The keen to sacrifice and slow, The plumed, the crawling, all were You That started hither long ago. For man is many when begun, But Love can weave his ends to one. "The new, the ancient, song and prose, The lower road, the higher aim, The clean, the draggled, dust and snows Were you the striving, you the same. Pride and endeavour, love and loss, The pattern is the threads that cross.