Unknown sweet spirit, whose vesture is soft in spring,

In summer splendid, in autumn pale as the wood

That shudders and wanes and shrinks as a shamed thing should,

In winter bright as the mail of a war-worn king

Who stands where foes fled far from the face of him stood.

My spirit or thine is it, breath of thy life or of mine,

Which fills my sense with a rapture that casts out fear?

Pan's dim frown wanes, and his wild eyes brighten as thine,

Transformed as night or as day by the kindling year.

Earth-born, or mine eye were withered that sees, mine ear

That hears were stricken to death by the sense divine,

Earth-born I know thee: but heaven is about me here.

The terror that whispers in darkness and flames in light,

The doubt that speaks in the silence of earth and sea,

The sense, more fearful at noon than in midmost night,

Of wrath scarce hushed and of imminent ill to be,

Where are they? Heaven is as earth, and as heaven to me

Earth: for the shadows that sundered them here take flight;

And nought is all, as am I, but a dream of thee.

[Pg 141]

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