Now that I pass towards the pure Ideal,
All earthly things are sanctified and white;
Now that I live as in my Lady's sight,
Superb imaginations crown the real.
I am happy now: before me shines the right, —
Sweet to pursue, a gracious flag to follow:
All lesser lamps are glow-worms in a hollow,
By Purity's unutterable light.

I seek my Lady now with tender pleasure,
With hands made bold and spirit undefiled;
Happy I am as in the golden leisure
Of early love, — no more perverse and wild;
I love beyond all words, beyond all measure,

For love's sake keep thine inmost body pure:
Pure not in coarse Convention's meagre sense
But pure through effort terribly intense
High joys to gain, whose sweetness shall endure.
The sea is thine, all flowers are thine, the sure
Strong sun is thine, and morning on the hills:
From these win somewhat of the Force that fills
The world with raptures thy soul may secure.

For love's sake let not any stain abide
Upon the deathless body thou mayest give
Supremely splendid to a deathless Bride,

Ere love's divine ineffable embrace
Be fully won, within some garden-close
Drink all the fragrance of the perfect rose
And let the South West breeze caress thy face.
Give thou to woman the pure inmost grace
Of the delicious-hearted heliotrope:
Love with the rich carnation's power and scope;
Let not God's blossoms worst thee in the race.

See that she giveth thee within her breast
The secret-scented souls of all the flowers
And their strange dim heaven-message in her hair:
Yea, win thou likewise from the summer air

Not thus did Christ the Eternal loving King
Teach truth to man. Not thus did Christ extract
The core of pain, but by strong word and act,
By touch of hand, by glance o'ermastering
The foul disease, the dark invasive thing
Within the suffering body pent and packed.
Love, ever love — by love he could attract,
And draw from deadliest pain its deepest sting.

Learn, ye whose chosen office is to heal,
That all disease is subject to the power
Of Love, — that Love is as a river sweet
Pouring with silvery ripples of appeal

One has to count the cost. — One cannot win love's sweetness,
One cannot grasp fair love in absolute completeness
Without the pain as well.
The sweetest flowers are those which grow not on the mountains
But at the solemn edge, and sprinkled by the fountains,
Of pain's dim red unfathomable hell.

Oh, not the common love is sweetest, but the passion
Which bindeth soul to soul in mystic sacred fashion
In spite of adverse things.
Without pursuit could love exult in priceless capture?
No soul can know love's deep immeasurable rapture

Is there redemption for the utmost crime
Of having sinned against a love so sweet
It sought the starriest airs with fearless feet
And poured strange fragrance through the fields of time?
May erring man supreme forgiveness meet,
Be raised again, once more God's mountains climb.
Once more the chant of deathless joy repeat
And mix his song with ocean's mighty rhyme?

If all be lost on earth, if hope and love
And health must vanish, are there yet in store
Flowers that shall perish not, but evermore

Yes: there are many loves. — The love that dreams
Of flowers and songs, and weaves within its hair
Leaves fresh from dalliance with youth's mountain-air
And blossoms dainty from the morning's streams.
Love too that mixes with the pale moonbeams
Its mystic tresses. Passion swift and rare:
Love even than the rose's kiss more fair;
Love whose young heart with wildest fancy teems.

But fairer and more beautiful than these
Is just the love that by its very soul
Swears that from starting till the final goal

Of all sweet names that sing in poets' ears
I think thy name is sweetest. Soft and new
It brought before me the broad Southern blue:
My dreams were sweetened by thy girlish years,
And hand in hand with all thy joys and fears
I wandered thine enchanted uplands through,
And saw the sunlight gild the wild " karroo, "
And saw thy lonely sweet eyes fill with tears.

I love the name, — the very sweetest name
It is that heart of poet ever sung.
I love to hear it linger on my tongue
And feel that through the word the heart I claim:

It smote across me with a sudden pang,
The thought that you must die. It shall not be!
If there is soul of passion in the sea
Or in the moon whose white orb used to hang
Above the wild plains where thy spirit sang
Its girlish love-song to infinity, —
If there was love in sun or flower or tree
Or river whose soft voice beside thee rang, —
If there is love in the Unknown Power or me, —

More, more, had I the power, my soul would do. —
Am I content, — till all thy soul is bright
With God's own passionate unearthly light,
And on thy forehead all God's heaven of blue
Set like a jewel? Lo! I would renew
Thy soul, long-lost amid the pathless night, —
Be thine eternal champion in the fight, —
Bring thee from false ends towards love's purpose true.

O love, thou knowest me not! My love hath lightened
From end to end of heaven, and heaven hath brightened;
It is a tender gift: — it is a sword