All wonder of pleasure, all doubt of desire,
  All blindness, are ended, and no more ye feel
If your feet tread his flowers or the flames of his fire,
  If your breast meet his balms or the edge of his steel. 
    Change is come, and past over, no more strife, no more learning: 
  Now your lips and your forehead are sealed with his seal,
    Look backward and smile at the thorns and the burning. 
    —­Sweet rest, O my soul, and no fear of returning!_

Enter before the curtain LOVE, clad still as a Pilgrim.

LOVE

How is it with the Fosterer then, when he
Comes back again that rest and peace to see,
And God his latest prayer has granted now?—­
Why, as the winds whereso they list shall blow,
So drifts the thought of man, and who shall say
To-morrow shall my thought be as to-day? 
—­My fosterling is happy, and I too;
Yet did we leave behind things good to do,
Deeds good to tell about when we are dead. 
Here is no pain, but rest, and easy bread;
Yet therewith something hard to understand
Dulls the crowned work to which I set my hand. 
Ah, patience yet! his longing is well won,
And I shall die at last and all be done.—­
Such words unspoken the best man on earth
Still bears about betwixt the lover’s mirth;
And now he hath what he went forth to find,
This Pharamond is neither dull nor blind,
And looking upon Oliver, he saith:—­
My friend recked nothing of his life or death,
Knew not my anguish then, nor now my pleasure,
And by my crowned joy sets his lessened treasure. 
Is risk of twenty days of wind and sea,
Of new-born feeble headless enmity,
I should have scorned once, too great gift to give
To this most faithful man that he may live?

—­Yea, was that all? my faithful, you and I,
Still craving, scorn the world too utterly,
The world we want not—­yet, our one desire
Fulfilled at last, what next shall feed the fire? 
—­I say not this to make my altar cold;
Rather that ye, my happy ones, should hold
Enough of memory and enough of fear
Within your hearts to keep its flame full clear;
Rather that ye, still dearer to my heart,
Whom words call hapless, yet should praise your part,
Wherein the morning and the evening sun
Are bright about a story never done;
That those for chastening, these for joy should cling
About the marvels that my minstrels sing.

Well, Pharamond fulfilled of love must turn
Unto the folk that still he deemed would yearn
To see his face, and hear his voice once more;
And he was mindful of the days passed o’er,
And fain had linked them to these days of love;
And he perchance was fain the world to move
While love looked on; and he perchance was fain
Some pleasure of the strife of old to gain. 
Easy withal it seemed to him to land,
And by his empty throne awhile to stand
Amid the wonder, and then sit him down
While folk went forth to seek the hidden crown.