HIS lips have been hallowed with flame; By pain they are pure to repeat The wonderful whispers of God That speak in the hush of his soul; Yet if we would trace where he trod Toward the glorious lure of his goal, In what bitter byways of shame Are the prints of his wandering feet! HIS eyes have the light of the stars Whose secrets they search unafraid. For him the great mystery wakes To beauty whose vision is power; But his face is disfigured with scars That warfare ignoble has made, And idly his carelessness breaks A heart like the stem of a flower. AND yet, to far valleys forlorn Where saints without aureole grope To garland the altars of light In a blindness of patience and prayer, Like the shout of a trumpet is borne The vision that flashed on his sight, And they hear in their twilight of hope, A triumph of dawn in the air. ALL are but parts of the Whole. He laboureth never in vain Who chose in marred vessels of clay To light the unquenchable spark. The seer who fell by the way -- The steadfast, uncomforted soul -- God, who gave birth to the twain, Is joining their hands in the dark. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SURFACE AND STRUCTURE: BONAVENTURE HOTEL, LOS ANGELES by KAREN SWENSON A ROUGH RHYME ON A ROUGH MATTER; THE ENGLISH GAME LAWS by CHARLES KINGSLEY WITCH-WIFE by EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY THE RUBAIYAT, 1879 EDITION: 68 by OMAR KHAYYAM POLWART ON THE GREEN by ALLAN RAMSAY DULL DEVOTION by JOSEPH BEAUMONT |