XII

And ever as Anwyl went the unknown end

Faded before him, back and back and back

He saw new empty heavens for ever bend

Over his endless track;

And memory, burning with new hopeless fire,

Showed him how every passing infinite hour

Made some new Crucifix for the World's Desire

Is some new wayside flower:

He saw what joy and beauty owed to death;

How all the world was one great sacrifice

Of Him, in whom all creatures that draw breath

Share God's eternal skies;

How Love is lord of all the world at once;

And never bids the encircled spirit roam

To the circle's bound, beyond the moons and suns,

But makes each heart its home,

And every home the heart of Space and Time,

And each and all a heaven if love could reign

One infinite untranscended heaven sublime

With God's own joy and pain.