Acknowledgment
I
Now at thy soft recalling voice I rise
Where thought is lord o’er Time’s complete estate,
Like as a dove from out the gray sedge flies
To tree-tops green where coos his heavenly mate.
From these clear coverts high and cool I see
How every time with every time is knit,
And each to all is mortised cunningly,
And none is sole or whole, yet all are fit.
Thus, if this Age but as a comma show
‘Twixt weightier clauses of large-worded years,
My calmer soul scorns not the mark: I know
This crooked point Time’s complex sentence clears.
Yet more I learn while, Friend! I sit by thee;
Who sees all time, sees all eternity.
II
By the more height of thy sweet stature grown,
Twice-eyed with thy gray vision set in mine,
I ken far lands to wifeless men unknown,
I compass stars for one-sexed eyes too fine.
No text on sea-horizons cloudily writ,
No maxim vaguely starred in fields or skies,
But this wise thou-in-me deciphers it:
Oh, thou’rt the Height of heights, the Eye of eyes.
Not hardest fortune’s most unbounded stress
Can bind my soul nor hurl it from on high,
Possessing thee, the self of loftiness,
And very light that sight discovers by.
Howe’er thou turn’st, wrong Earth! still Love’s in sight
For we are taller than the breadth of night.
I
Now at thy soft recalling voice I rise
Where thought is lord o’er Time’s complete estate,
Like as a dove from out the gray sedge flies
To tree-tops green where coos his heavenly mate.
From these clear coverts high and cool I see
How every time with every time is knit,
And each to all is mortised cunningly,
And none is sole or whole, yet all are fit.
Thus, if this Age but as a comma show
‘Twixt weightier clauses of large-worded years,
My calmer soul scorns not the mark: I know
This crooked point Time’s complex sentence clears.
Yet more I learn while, Friend! I sit by thee;
Who sees all time, sees all eternity.
II
By the more height of thy sweet stature grown,
Twice-eyed with thy gray vision set in mine,
I ken far lands to wifeless men unknown,
I compass stars for one-sexed eyes too fine.
No text on sea-horizons cloudily writ,
No maxim vaguely starred in fields or skies,
But this wise thou-in-me deciphers it:
Oh, thou’rt the Height of heights, the Eye of eyes.
Not hardest fortune’s most unbounded stress
Can bind my soul nor hurl it from on high,
Possessing thee, the self of loftiness,
And very light that sight discovers by.
Howe’er thou turn’st, wrong Earth! still Love’s in sight
For we are taller than the breadth of night.