The Beggar's Valentine

Kiss me and comfort my heart

Maiden honest and fine.

I am the pilgrim boy

Lame, but hunting the shrine;

Fleeing away from the sweets,

Seeking the dust and rain,

Sworn to the staff and road,

Scorning pleasure and pain;

Nevertheless my mouth

Would rest like a bird an hour

And find in your curls a nest

And find in your breast a bower:

Nevertheless my eyes

Would lose themselves in your own,

Rivers that seek the sea,

Angels before the throne:

Kiss me and comfort my heart,

For love can never be mine:

Passion, hunger and pain,

These are the only wine

Of the pilgrim bound to the road.

He would rob no man of his own.

Your heart is another's I know,

Your honor is his alone.

The feasts of a long drawn love,

The feasts of a wedded life,

The harvests of patient years,

And hearthstone and children and wife:

These are your lords I know.

These can never be mine —

This is the price I pay

For the foolish search for the shrine:

This is the price I pay

For the joy of my midnight prayers,

Kneeling beneath the moon

With hills for my altar stairs;

This is the price I pay

For the throb of the mystic wings,

When the dove of God comes down

And beats round my heart and sings;

This is the price I pay

For the light I shall some day see

At the ends of the infinite earth

When truth shall come to me.

And what if my body die

Before I meet the truth?

The road is dear, more dear

Than love or life or youth.

The road, it is the road,

Mystical, endless, kind,

Mother of visions vast,

Mother of soul and mind;

Mother of all of me

But the blood that cries for a mate —

That cries for a farewell kiss

From the child of God at the gate.