When the white wave of a glory that is hardly I Breaks through my mind and washes it clean, I know at last the meaning of my ecstasy, And know at last my wish and what it can mean. To have sped out of life that night - to have vanished Not as a vision, but as something touched, yet grown Radiant as the moonlight, circling my naked shoulder; Wrapped in a dream of beauty, longed for, but never known. For how with our daily converse, even the sweet sharing Of thoughts, of food, of home, of common life, How shall I be that glory, that last desire For which men struggle? Is Romance in a wife? Must I bend a heart that is bowed to breaking With a frustration, inevitable and slow, And bank my flame to a low hearth fire, believing You'll come for warmth and life to its tempered glow? Shall I mould my hope anew, to one of service, And tell my uneasy soul "Behold, this is good." And meet you (if we do meet), even at Heaven's threshold, With ewer and basin, with clothing and with food? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AURENG-ZEBE, OR THE GREAT MOGUL: PROLOGUE by JOHN DRYDEN FAITHLESS NELLY GRAY; A PATHETIC BALLAD by THOMAS HOOD PORTRAIT BY PICHER by FRANCES BAKER RUSTIC CHILDHOOD by WILLIAM BARNES LOVE'S POWER by WINIFRED LANGWORTHY BROWN KARSHISH, THE ARAB PHYSICIAN by ROBERT BROWNING THE CANTERBURY TALES: THE PROLOGUE OF THE MONK'S TALE by GEOFFREY CHAUCER |