Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu/952

 'When round his head the aureole clings, And he is clothed in white, I'll take his hand, and go with him To the deep wells of light, And we will step down as to a stream And bathe there in God's sight.

'We two will stand beside that shrine, Occult, withheld, untrod, Whose lamps tremble continually With prayer sent up to God; And where each need, reveal'd, expects Its patient period.

'We two will lie i' the shadow of That living mystic tree Within whose secret growth the Dove Sometimes is felt to be, While every leaf that His plumes touch Saith His name audibly.

'And I myself will teach to him,— I myself, lying so,— The songs I sing here; which his mouth Shall pause in, hush'd and slow, Finding some knowledge at each pause, And some new thing to know.'

(Alas! to her wise simple mind These things were all but known Before: they trembled on her sense,—  Her voice had caught their tone. Alas for lonely Heaven! Alas  For life wrung out alone!