It nothing ’vailed that yet I sought and sought,
  Part of my very self was left behind,
Till risen in wrath against th’ o’ermastering thought,
  ‘Let me be thankful,’ quoth the better mind,
Thankful for her, though utterly to nought
  She brings my heart’s cry, and I live to find
A new self of the old self exigent
In the light of my divining discontent.

The picture of a maiden bidding ’Arise,
  I am the Art of God.  He shows by me
His great idea, so well as sin-stained eyes
  Love aidant can behold it.’ 
                              Is this she? 
Or is it mine own love for her supplies
  The meaning and the power?  Howe’er this be,
She is the interpreter by whom most near
Man’s soul is drawn to beauty and pureness here.

The sweet idea, invisible hitherto,
  Is in her face, unconscious delegate;
That thing she wots not of ordained to do: 
  But also it shall be her votary’s fate,
Through her his early days of ease to eschew,
  Struggle with life and prove its weary weight. 
All the great storms that rising rend the soul,
Are life in little, imaging the whole.

Ay, so as life is, love is, in their ken
  Stars, infant yet, both thought to grasp, to keep,
Then came the morn of passionate splendour, when
  So sweet the light, none but for bliss could weep,
And then the strife, the toil; but we are men,
  Strong, brave to battle with the stormy deep;
Then fear—­and then renunciation—­then
Appeals unto the Infinite Pity—­and sleep.

But after life the sleep is long.  Not so
  With love.  Love buried lieth not straight, not still,
Love starts, and after lull awakes to know
  All the deep things again.  And next his will,
That dearest pang is, never to forego. 
  He would all service, hardship, fret fulfill. 
Unhappy love! and I of that great host
Unhappy love who cry, unhappy most.

Because renunciation was so short,
  The starved heart so easily awaked;
A dream could do it, a bud, a bird, a thought,
  But I betook me with that want which ached
To neighbour lands where strangeness with me wrought. 
  The old work was so hale, its fitness slaked
Soul-thirst for truth.  ‘I knew not doubt nor fear,’
Its language, ‘war or worship, sure sincere.’

Then where by Art the high did best translate
  Life’s infinite pathos to the soul, set down
Beauty and mystery, that imperious hate
  On its best braveness doth and sainthood frown,
Nay more the MASTER’S manifest pity—­’wait,
  Behold the palmgrove and the promised crown. 
He suffers with thee, for thee.—­Lo the Child! 
Comfort thy heart; he certainly so smiled.’

Thus love and I wore through the winter time. 
  Then saw her demon blush Vesuvius try,
Then evil ghosts white from the awful prime,
  Thrust up sharp peaks to tear the tender sky. 
‘No more to do but hear that English chime’
  I to a kinsman wrote.  He made reply,
’As home I bring my girl and boy full soon,
I pass through Evesham,—­meet me there at noon.