Men have named beauty. Thy great leaves enfold
And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep
Of the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyes
Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those
By a grey shore where the wind never blew,
That men threshed corn at midnight by a tress,
Or in the wine-vat, dwell beyond the stir
Like the sparks blown outof a smithy, and die?
When shall the stars be blown about the sky,
And sought through lands and islands numberless years,
Among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep
And lost the world and Emer for a kiss;
And the proud dreaming king who flung the crown
In Druid vapour and make the torches dim;
Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre,
Feasted, and wept the barrows of his dead;
The Secret Rose
Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him
And him who drove the gods out of their liss,
FAR-OFF, most secret, and inviolate Rose,
Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows,
And him who sold tillage, and house, and goods,
A woman of so shining loveliness
Who met Fand walking among flaming dew
Saw the pierced Hands and Rood of elder rise
Alittle stolen tress. I, too, await
And till a hundred moms had flowered red
The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold
Until he found, with laughter and with tears,
The hour of thy great wind of love and hate.
Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose?
Dwelt among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods:
And sorrow away, and calling bard and clown
