Choriambics — II

Here the flame that was ash, shrine that was void, lost in the haunted wood,

I have tended and loved, year upon year, I in the solitude

Waiting, quiet and glad-eyed in the dark, knowing that once a gleam

Glowed and went through the wood. Still I abode strong in a golden dream,

Unrecaptured.

For I, I that had faith, knew that a face would glance

One day, white in the dim woods, and a voice call, and a radiance

Fill the grove, and the fire suddenly leap... and, in the heart of it,

End of labouring, you! Therefore I kept ready the altar, lit

The flame, burning apart.

Face of my dreams vainly in vision white

Gleaming down to me, lo! hopeless I rise now. For about midnight

Whispers grew through the wood suddenly, strange cries in the boughs above

Grated, cries like a laugh. Silent and black then through the sacred grove

Great birds flew, as a dream, troubling the leaves, passing at length.

I knew

Long expected and long loved, that afar, God of the dim wood, you

Somewhere lay, as a child sleeping, a child suddenly reft from mirth,

White and wonderful yet, white in your youth, stretched upon foreign earth,

God, immortal and dead!

Therefore I go; never to rest, or win

Peace, and worship of you more, and the dumb wood and the shrine therein.