A Poem

I have ransacked heaven and earth,
      Hilarion, for gramarye
Of words to witness to thy worth.
      For incense-clouds of poesy
I have ransacked heaven and earth.

God came, and Light and Love and Life;
      The mystic Rose flowered fair and fain;
All skies ensphered the worshipped wife;
      All failed in fragrance; all in vain
God came, and Light and Love and Life.

Jewels and snows and flowers and streams
      Lent flashing beauties to my verse;
They are but phantoms fed on dreams
      To thy reality — I curse
Jewels and snows and flowers and streams.

I sought for fancy’s witch-device;
      Arabian fable, Indian hymn,
Chinese design and Persian spice —
      Besides thy truth how ghostly dim
Is fancy’s bodiless witch-device!

I love the legends of the past;
      Egypt, Assyria, Greece and Rome,
The Celtic rune, the saga blast —
      Thou art the sea, and they the foam,
The lovely legends of the past.

In the heart’s wordless exaltation,
      The silence of the depth of things,
There only sobs mine adoration;
      There only may I wave my wings —
Silence, and love, and exaltation.

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