I rise, I pass; The feast is on, bright is the board, Undrained the comrade glass; Love's sheltering eyes are deep and nigh; Fame waits with shining word; But sweeter, goldening the sphere, A voice falls from another sky; The wasting world I do not hear, And no god laughs as I pass by, A wanderer. Unpausing lowers The gleam of her from other airs, And Being's guarded doors Are open wide for journey free Where wait my chosen stars; And o'er me, O what lustres break That burns a thousand suns to make One nightingale to sing for me, A soul awake! Far, far I sped Down moonless lanes from doubt to doubt; With hasting, hungry tread Up slopes of frost unpitying Where the last star went out; There fell I in unlifting dark, And lying while an Æon's wing Dragged o'er me bare, wind-stript and stark, As leafless planets dream of Spring, Dreamed she would hark. Then by me bound, Came one who wore my lost career With star on star pinned round, And stood him by my bones to stare. With pity's ancient sneer He mocked my bleachen nudity; And pausing where I might not see She let the winds blow back her hair And cover me. |