divine, divine!

p. 21

p. 22A WIND OF CLEAR WEATHER IN ENGLAND

p. 22

O what a miracle wind is this Has crossed the English land to-day With an unprecedented kiss, And wonderfully found a way!

Unsmirched incredibly and clean, Between the towns and factories, Avoiding, has his long flight been, Bringing a sky like Sicily’s.

O fine escape, horizon pure As Rome’s! Black chimneys left and right, But not for him, the straight, the sure, His luminous day, his spacious night.

How keen his choice, how swift his feet! Narrow the way and hard to find! This delicate stepper and discreet Walked not like any worldly wind.

Most like a man in man’s own day, One of the few, a perfect one: His open earth—the single way; His narrow road—the open sun.

p. 23IN SLEEP

p. 23

I dreamt (no “dream” awake—a dream indeed) A wrathful man was talking in the park: “Where are the Higher Powers, who know our need And leave us in the dark?

“There are no Higher Powers; there is no heart In God, no love”—his oratory here, Taking the paupers’ and the cripples’ part, Was broken by a tear.

And then it seemed that One who did create Compassion, who alone invented pity, Walked, as though called, in at that north-east gate, Out from the muttering city;

Threaded the little crowd, trod the brown grass, Bent o’er the speaker close, saw the tear rise, And saw Himself, as one looks in a glass, In those impassioned eyes.

p. 24THE DIVINE PRIVILEGE

p. 24

Lord, where are Thy prerogatives? Why, men have more than Thou hast kept; The king rewards, remits, forgives, The poet to a throne has stept.

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