The Rose

Far-off, most secret, and inviolate Rose,
Enfold me in my hour of hours;
where those Who sought thee in the Holy Sepulchre,
Or in the wine-vat, dwell beyond the stir
And tumult of defeated dreams;
and deep Among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep Men have named beauty.
They great leaves enfold
The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold
Of the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyes
Saw the Pierced Hands and Rood of elder rise
In Druid vapour and make torch dim;
Till vain frenzy awoke and he died;
and him Who met Fand walking among the flaming dew
By a gey shore where the wind never blew,And lost the world and Emer for a kiss;
And him who drove the gods out of their liss,
And till a hundred morns had flowered red Feasted,
and wept the barrows of his dead;
And the proud dreaming king who flung the crown
And sorrow away, and calling bard and clown
Dwelt among wine-stained wanderers in the deep woods;
And him who sold tillage, and house, and goods,
And sought through the lands and islands numberless years,
Until he found, whith laughter ans with tear,
A woman of so shining loveliness That men threshed corn at midnight by a tress,
A stolen tress.
I, too, await
The hour of thy great wind of love and hate.
When shall the stars be blown about the sky,
Like the sparks blown out of a smithy, and die?
Surely, thine hour has come, thy great wind blows,Far-off, most secret , inviolate Rose?