Classic Poem

No doubt he'd once had eyes to see
Through mill-stones to the mystery
That mill-stones might perhaps intend
If there were Ends beyond the end—
But now he had no plague of eyes.

There was a way of being wise
That was not wisdom: one might love
Too loftily and fall above
As well as one might fall below.
And there were things a man might know
That were not knowledge either.
Truth
For instance.
One's ecstatic youth
Proves true what has no proof in sense:
And time strikes out the evidence
But enters judgment on the rule,
So that one's wisdom, learned fool,
Knows only that the thing is true.
But he had knowledge, for he knew
His proofs and never tried their weight
As evidence to demonstrate
The truth of anything on earth
Except themselves, and what was worth
Believing of them.
She was real:
He knew because his hands could feel
The bones that threatened in her wrist.
And she proved nothing but the twist
That was her way of beauty—not
Some Beauty that he had forgot
Nor Truth that now was past belief.
A woman was no lawyer's brief
Compounded to persuade the sense
Of things beyond experience
No woman's body could fulfil,
But Holy Writ that can distil
The very peace it promises.

Once he had seen the Thing That Is
In every movement of her head—

He yawned and shuffled off to bed.