TO THE TRUE ROMANCE. Thy face is far from this our warOur call and counter-cry. I shall not find Thee quick and kind, Nor know Thee till I die. Enough for me in dreams to see And touch Thy garments' hemThy feet have trod so near to God I may not follow them. Through wantonness if men profess And perish with their arts: While we adore, discover more Since spoken word Man's spirit stirred Beyond his belly-need, What is is Thine of fair design In thought and craft and deed: Each stroke aright of toil and fight And hope too high wherefore we die, Who holds by Thee hath Heaven in fee And knowledge sure that he endure For to make plain that man's disdain Is but new Beauty's birth, For to possess in loneliness The joy of all the earth. As Thou didst teach all lovers speech, And Life her mystery, So shalt thou rule by every school Till Love and Longing die, Who wast or yet the lights were met, A whisper in the Void, Who shalt be sung through planets young Beyond the bounds our staring rounds The children wise of outer skies Look hitherward and mark A light that shifts, a glare that drifts, Not all forlorn, for Thou hast borne Time hath no tide but must abide Tide hath no time, for to Thy rhyme Oh, 'twas certes, at Thy decrees We fashioned Heaven and Hell! Pure Wisdom hath no certain path Thou art the Voice to kingly boys A veil to draw twixt God His law A shadow kind to dumb and blind O Charity, all patiently Abiding wrack and scaith! O Faith, that meets ten thousand cheats, Yet drops no jot of faith! Devil and brute Thou dost transmute To higher, lordlier show, Who art in sooth that utter Truth Thy face is far from this our war- I may not find Thee breathed and kind, Yet may I look with heart unshook Yet may I hear with equal ear Oh, hit or miss, how little 'tis, My Lady is not there! |