Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/278

250 II

Beauty!—O, well for the hearts that bow down and adore her:

Heart of mine, hold thou in all the world nothing before her.

All the fair universe now to her feet that is clinging

Out of the womb of her leapt with the dawn, and the singing

Of stars. O thou Beautiful!—thee do I worship and praise

In the dark where thy lamps are; again in thy glory of days,

Whose end and beginning thou blessest with piercing delight

Of splendors outspread on the edge of the robe of the night.

Ah, that sweetness is sent not to him whose dull spirit would rest

In the bliss of it; no, not the goal, but the passion and quest;

Not the vale, but the desert. O, never soft airs shall awake

Thy Soul to the soul of all Beauty, all heaven, and all wonder;

The summons that comes to thee, mortal, thy spirit to shake,

Shall be the loud clarion's call and the voices of thunder.

A WINTER TWILIGHT IN PROVENCE

in a far and ancient land,

At evening-light I wander. Shade on shade

The mountain valleys darken, and the plain