CALLED

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

Of that desire, Reality,

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;

Then did she turn, then did she care,

And pausing where I might not see

She let the winds blow back her hair

And cover me.