Page:The roamer and other poems (1920).djvu/101

Rh Frees it from time, and shapes creation's stuff

In likeness of the mind's ideal world;

Thence hath our sight its visionary ray

Wherein the painter and the sculptor see,

The poet dreams, the lover lives forlorn;

Thence music feeds on harmonies divine;

Beauty the soul creates it hath from thence,

And, in creating, takes that beauty's form;

That world, once seen, the soul puts beauty forth,

Bloom after bloom, and men who look on it

Enamored are and like unto it grow;

Then speeds the heart of youth to the most fair,

What fascinates it most, most imitates;

Such passion most maketh it beautiful.

So soul takes form of beauty it beholds

And images; yet far more oft 't is seen

In mortal raiment of divine desire;

Its heavenly thirst increases without end;

Unslaked its passion, wonderful it glows,

And fills its earthly sphere with unknown light:

Then shines apparent the eternal part

In the soul's nature, homesick for the fair,

And ever fairer as it turneth home:

So grows the soul to mortals manifest."

"Love is the great creator"; the reply

Came with the heart's voice in it, musical