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