Thou that art sweeter than all orchards' breath
And clearer than the sun gleam after rain
Thou that savest my soul's self from death
As scorpion's is, of self-inflicted pain
Thou that dost ever make demand for the best I have to give
Gentle to utmost courteously bidding only my pure-purged
spirits live:
Thou that spellest ever gold from out my dross
Mage powerful and subtly sweet
Gathering fragments that there be no loss
Behold the brighter gains lie at thy feet.

If any flower mortescent lay in sun-withering dust
If any old forgotten sweetness of a former drink
Naught but stilt fragrance of autumnal flowers
Mnemonic of spring's bloom and parody of powers
That make the spring the mistress of our earth--
If such a perfume of a dulled rebirth
Lingered, obliviate with o'er mistrust,
Marescent, fading on the dolorous brink
That border is to that marasmic sea
Where all desire's harmony

Tendeth and endeth in sea monotone
Blendeth wave and wind and rocks most drear
Into dull sub-harmonies of light;out grown
From man's compass of intelligence,
Where love and fear meet
Having ceased to be:

All this, and such disconsolate finery
As doth remain in this gaunt castle of my heart
Thou gatherest of thy clemency
Sifting the fair and foul apart,
Thou weavest for thy self a sun-gold bower
By subtily incanted raed
Every unfavorable and ill-happed hour
Turneth blind and potently is stayed
Before the threshold of thy dwelling place

Holy, as beneath all-holy wings
Some sacred covenant had passed thereby
Wondrous as wind murmurings
That night thy fingers laid on mine their benediction
When thru the interfoliate strings
Joy sang among God's earthly trees
Yea in this house of thine that I have found at last
Meseemeth a high heaven's antepast
And thou thyself art unto me
Both as the glory head and sun
Casting thine own anthelion
Thru this dull mist
My soul was wont to be.