Apologia

Is it thy will that I should wax and wane,     Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey,     And at thy pleasure weave that web of pain     Whose brightest threads are each a wasted day?     Is it thy will Love that I love so well     That my Soul's House should be a tortured spot     Wherein, like evil paramours, must dwell     The quenchless flame, the worm that dieth not?     Nay, if it be thy will I shall endure,     And sell ambition at the common mart,     And let dull failure be my vestiture,     And sorrow dig its grave within my heart.     Perchance it may be better so at least     I have not made my heart a heart of stone,     Nor starved my boyhood of its goodly feast,     Nor walked where Beauty is a thing unknown.     Many a man hath done so; sought to fence     In straitened bonds the soul that should be free,     Trodden the dusty road of common sense,     While all the forest sang of liberty,     Not marking how the spotted hawk in flight     Passed on wide pinion through the lofty air,     To where some steep untrodden mountain height     Caught the last tresses of the Sun God's hair.     Or how the little flower he trod upon,     The daisy, that white-feathered shield of gold,     Followed with wistful eyes the wandering sun     Content if once its leaves were aureoled.     But surely it is something to have been     The best beloved for a little while,     To have walked hand in hand with Love, and seen     His purple wings flit once across thy smile.     Ay! though the gorged asp of passion feed     On my boy's heart, yet have I burst the bars,     Stood face to face with Beauty, known indeed     The Love which moves the Sun and all the stars!