I WILL not perturbate

Thy Paradisal state

With praise

Of thy dead days ;

To the new-heavened say,-

"Spirit, thou wert fine clay ":

This do,

Thy praise who knew.

Therefore my spirit clings

Heaven's porter by the wings,

And holds

Its gated golds

Apart, with thee to press

A private business;-

Whence,

Deign me audience.

Anchorite, who didst dwell

With all the world for celi,

My Soul

Round me doth roll

A Sequestration bare.

Too far alike we were,

Too far

Dissimilar.

For its burning fruitage I

Do climb the tree o' the sky;

Do prize

Some human eyes.

Tau smelt the Heaven-blossoms,

And all the sweet embosoms

The dear

Uranian year.

Those Eyes my weak gaze shuns,

Which to the suns are Suns,

Did

Not affray your lid.

The carpet was let down

(With golden moultings strown)

For you

Of the angels' blue.

But I, ex-Paradised,

The shoulder of your Christ

Find high

To lean thereby.

So flaps my helpless sail,

Bellying with neither gale,

Of Heaven

Nor Or cus even.

Life is a coquetry

Of Death, which wearies me,

Too sure

Of the amour;

A tiring-room where I

Death's divers garments try,

Till fit

Some fashion sit.

It seemeth me too much

I do rehearse for such

Amean

And single scene.

The sandy glass hence bear-

Antique remembrancer;

My veins

Do spare its pains.

With secret sympathy

My thoughts repeat in me

Infirm

The tura O' the worm

Beneath my appointed sod;

The grave is in my blood;

I shake

To winds that take

Its grasses by the top;

The rains thereon that drop

Perturb

With drip acerb

My subtly answering soul;

The feet across its knoll

Do jar

Me from afar.

Âs sap foretastes the spring;

Âs Earth ere blossoming

Thrills

With far daffodils,

And feels her breast turn sweet

With the unconceivèd wheat;

So doth

My flesh foreloathe

The abhorred spring of Dis,

With seething presciences

Affirm

The preparate worm.

I have no thought that I,

When at the last I die,

Shall reach

To gain your speech.

But you, should that be so,

May very well, I know,

May well

To me in hell

With recognising eyes

Look from your Paradise-

" God bless

Thy hopelessness !"

Call, holy soul, O call

The hosts angelical,

And say,-

" See, far away

" Lies one I saw on earth;

One stricken from his birth

With curse

Of destinate verse.

" What place doth He ye serve

For such sad spirit reserve,-

Given,

In dark Heu of Heaven,

" The impitiable Daemon,

Beauty, to adore and dream on,

To be

Perpetually

" Hers, but she never his?

He reapeth miseries;

Foreknows

His wages wo es ;

" He lives detachèd days;

He serveth not for praise;

For gold

He is not sold;

" Deaf is he to world's tongue;

He scorneth for his song

The loud

Shouts of the crowd;

" He asketh not world's eyes;

Not to world's ears he cries;

Saith,-' These

Shut, if ye please

" He measureth world's pleasvae,

Woild's ease, as Saints might mezsmt ;

For hìre

Just love entire

" He asb, not grudging pain;

And toows his asking vain,

And cries-

'Love! Love!' and dies,

" In guerdon of long duty,

Unowned by Love or Beauty;

And goes-

Tell, tell, who knows !

" Aliens from Heaven's worth,

Fine beasts who nose i' the earth,

Do there

Reward prepare.

" But are his great désires

Food but for nether fires ?

Ah me,

A mystery !

" Can it be his alone,

To find, when all is known,

That what

He soldy sought

" Is lost, and thereto lost !

All that its seeking cost?

That he

Must finally

" Through sacrificial tears,

And anchoretic years,

Tryst

With the sensualist?"

So ask; and if they tell

The secret terrible,

Good friend,

I pray thee send

Some high gold embassage

To teach my unripe age.

Tell!

Lest my feet walk hell.