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Azure and sun were starved from heaven above,
No dew had fallen, but biting frost lay hoar:
O love, I knew that I should meet my love,
Should find my love no more.

“My love no more,” I muttered, stunned with pain:
I shed no tear, I wrung no passionate hand,
Till something whispered: “You shall meet again,
Meet in a distant land.”

Then with a cry like famine I arose,
I lit my candle, searched from room to room,
Searched up and down; a war of winds that froze
Swept through the blank of gloom.

I searched day after day, night after night;
Scant change there came to me of night or day:
“No more,” I wailed, “no more”; and trimmed my light,
And gnashed, but did not pray,

Until my heart broke and my spirit broke:
Upon the frost-bound floor I stumbled, fell,
And moaned: “It is enough: withhold the stroke.
Farewell, O love, farewell.”

Then life swooned from me. And I heard the song
Of spheres and spirits rejoicing over me:
One cried: “Our sister, she hath suffered long.”–
One answered: “Make her see.”–

One cried: “O blessed she who no more pain,
Who no more disappointment shall receive.”–
One answered: “Not so: she must live again;
Strengthen thou her to live.”

So, while I lay entranced, a curtain seemed
To shrivel with crackling from before my face,
Across mine eyes a waxing radiance beamed
And showed a certain place.

I saw a vision of a woman, where
Night and new morning strive for domination;
Incomparably pale, and almost fair,
And sad beyond expression.

Her eyes were like some fire-enshrining gem,
Were stately like the stars, and yet were tender,
Her figure charmed me like a windy stem
Quivering and drooped and slender.

I stood upon the outer barren ground,
She stood on inner ground that budded flowers;
While circling in their never-slackening round
Danced by the mystic hours.

But every flower was lifted on a thorn,
And every thorn shot upright from its sands
To gall her feet; hoarse laughter pealed in scorn
With cruel clapping hands.

She bled and wept, yet did not shrink; her strength
Was strung up until daybreak of delight:
She measured measureless sorrow toward its length,
And breadth, and depth, and height.

Then marked I how a chain sustained her form,
A chain of living links not made nor riven:
It stretched sheer up through lightning, wind, and storm,
And anchored fast in heaven.

One cried: “How long? yet founded on the Rock
She shall do battle, suffer, and attain.”–
One answered: “Faith quakes in the tempest shock:
Strengthen her soul again.”

I saw a cup sent down and come to her
Brimful of loathing and of bitterness:
She drank with livid lips that seemed to stir
The depth, not make it less.

But as she drank I spied a hand distil
New wine and virgin honey; making it
First bitter-sweet, then sweet indeed, until
She tasted only sweet.

Her lips and cheeks waxed rosy-fresh and young;
Drinking she sang: “My soul shall nothing want”;
And drank anew: while soft a song was sung,
A mystical slow chant.

One cried: “The wounds are faithful of a friend:
The wilderness shall blossom as a rose.”–
One answered: “Rend the veil, declare the end,
Strengthen her ere she goes.”

Then earth and heaven were rolled up like a scroll;
Time and space, change and death, had passed away;
Weight, number, measure, each had reached its whole:
The day had come, that day.

Multitudes–multitudes–stood up in bliss,
Made equal to the angels, glorious, fair;
With harps, palms, wedding-garments, kiss of peace,
And crowned and haloed hair.