He leadeth, He hearkeneth, He cometh to you-ward;
  Set your faces as steel to the fears that assemble
Round his goad for the faint, and his scourge for the froward: 
  Lo his lips, how with tales of last kisses they tremble! 
  Lo his eyes of all sorrow that may not dissemble! 
Cry out, for he heedeth, “O Love, lead us home!”

O hearken the words of his voice of compassion: 
  “Come cling round about me, ye faithful who sicken
Of the weary unrest and the world’s passing fashion! 
  As the rain in mid-morning your troubles shall thicken,
  But surely within you some Godhead doth quicken,
As ye cry to me heeding, and leading you home._

“Come—­pain ye shall have, and be blind to the ending! 
  Come—­fear ye shall have, mid the sky’s overcasting! 
Come—­change ye shall have, for far are ye wending! 
  Come—­no crown ye shall have for your thirst and your fasting,
  But the kissed lips of Love and fair life everlasting! 
Cry out, for one heedeth, who leadeth you home!”

Is he gone? was he with us?—­ho ye who seek savings
  Go no further; come hither; for have we not found it? 
Here is the House of Fulfilment of Craving;
  Here is the Cup with the roses around it;
  The World’s Wound well healed, and the balm that hath bound it: 
Cry out! for he heedeth, fair Love that led home._

Enter before the curtain, LOVE, holding a crown and palm-branch.

LOVE

If love be real, if I whom ye behold
Be aught but glittering wings and gown of gold,
Be aught but singing of an ancient song
Made sweet by record of dead stingless wrong,
How shall we part at that sad garden’s end
Through which the ghosts of mighty lovers wend? 
How shall ye faint and fade with giftless hands
Who once held fast the life of all the lands? 
—­Beloved, if so much as this I say,
I know full well ye need it not to-day,
As with full hearts and glorious hope ablaze
Through the thick veil of what shall be ye gaze,
And lacking words to name the things ye see
Turn back with yearning speechless mouths to me.—­
—­Ah, not to-day—­and yet the time has been
When by the bed my wings have waved unseen
Wherein my servant lay who deemed me dead;
My tears have dropped anigh the hapless head
Deep buried in the grass and crying out
For heaven to fall, and end despair or doubt: 
Lo, for such days I speak and say, believe
That from these hands reward ye shall receive. 
—­Reward of what?—­Life springing fresh again.—­
Life of delight?—­I say it not—­Of pain? 
It may be—­Pain eternal?—­Who may tell? 
Yet pain of Heaven, beloved, and not of Hell. 
—­What sign, what sign, ye cry, that so it is? 
The sign of Earth, its sorrow and its bliss,
Waxing and waning, steadfastness and change;
Too full of life that I should think it strange