I will repent me of my ways;

I will come here and bury

Five thousand odd superfluous days

Beneath a flow’ring cherry.

  Between a pear and a cherry tree

My temple I will enter—

My place, where even I may be

The altar and the centre.

  One altar to a thousand aisles,

A hundred thousand arches ...

The loud lamb-choir about me files,

The bleating bishop marches,

  The congregation kneels and nods,

The bishop leads its praises,

So I’ll pray too, to their dim gods

Whose feet are decked with daisies:

Ah, let me not grow old. Ah, let

Me not grow old, and falter

In my delusion, or forget

My heart was once an altar. 

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