Nor can the almost-omnipotence of mind
Away from aching bind the bleeding heart,
Or keep at will its mighty sorrow down.
And, were the white flames of the world below
Binding my forehead with undying pain,
The lily crowns of heaven I would put back,
If thou wert there, lost light of my young dream!--
Hope, opening with the faint flowers of the wood,
Bloomed crimson with the summer's heavy kiss,
But autumn's dim feet left it in the dust,
And like tired reapers my lorn thoughts went down
To the gloom-harvest of a hopeless love,
For past all thought I loved thee: Listening close
From the soft hour when twilight's rosy hedge
Sprang from the fires of sunset, till deep night
Swept with her cloud of stars the face of heaven,
For the quick music, from the pavement rung
Where beat the impatient hoof-strokes of the steed,
Whose mane of silver, like a wave of light,
Bathed the caressing hand I pined to clasp!
It is as if a song-lark, towering high
In pride of place, should stoop her sun-bathed wing,
Low as the poor hum of the grasshopper.
I scorn thee not, old man; no haunting ghost
Born of the darkness of thy perjury
Crosses the white tent of my dreaming now
But for myself, that I should so have loved!--
The sweet folds of that blessed charity,
Pure as the cold veins of Pentelicus,
Were all too narrow now to hide away