Classic Poem

A snow-swirl from the bitter blast of life,
A wavering flame before the winds of death,
A soul beat upward toward the feet of God.

With blind desire he battered against space,
And with the heartache of a child come home
He shook with anguish at the frozen door.

Sealed with the freezings of oblivion
The looming shadowy gates of God's abode
In awful silence stirred not to his cry.

And then a voice woke very far away
Saying, " You may not win to that pure light
Wherein the fulness of all joy abides

" Till you have won its shadow upon earth,
That white and strangest of all mysteries,
The perfect wonder of a woman's love. "

The grey and aching vision of the gate
Wavered before him. With unuttered cry
He shivered outward where the darkness leered.