THE WELCOME

But see: my lady comes. I hear her feet

Upon the sward; she standeth by my side.

Just such a face Raphael had deified,

If in his day they two had chanced to meet.

And I, tossed by the tide of circumstance,

Lifting weak hands against a host of swords,

Paused suddenly to hear her gentle words

Making powerless the lightnings of mischance.

I, who was but a maker of poor songs,

That one might sing behind his prison bars,

I, who it seemed fate singled out for wrongs —

She smiled on me as smile the nearest stars.

From her deep soul I draw my peace, and thus,

One wreath of rhyme I weave for both of us.