The Wild Knight

The wasting thistle whitens on my crest,     The barren grasses blow upon my spear,     A green, pale pennon: blazon of wild faith     And love of fruitless things: yea, of my love,     Among the golden loves of all the knights,     Alone: most hopeless, sweet, and blasphemous,     The love of God:     I hear the crumbling creeds     Like cliffs washed down by water, change, and pass;     I hear a noise of words, age after age,     A new cold wind that blows across the plains,     And all the shrines stand empty; and to me     All these are nothing: priests and schools may doubt     Who never have believed; but I have loved.     Ah friends, I know it passing well, the love     Wherewith I love; it shall not bring to me     Return or hire or any pleasant thing--     Ay, I have tried it: Ay, I know its roots.     Earthquake and plague have burst on it in vain     And rolled back shattered--     Babbling neophytes!     Blind, startled fools--think you I know it not?     Think you to teach me?    Know I not His ways?     Strange-visaged blunders, mystic cruelties.     All! all! I know Him, for I love Him. Go!     So, with the wan waste grasses on my spear,     I ride for ever, seeking after God.     My hair grows whiter than my thistle plume,     And all my limbs are loose; but in my eyes     The star of an unconquerable praise:     For in my soul one hope for ever sings,     That at the next white corner of a road     My eyes may look on Him....     Hush--I shall know     The place when it is found: a twisted path     Under a twisted pear-tree--this I saw     In the first dream I had ere I was born,     Wherein He spoke....     But the grey clouds come down     In hail upon the icy plains: I ride,     Burning for ever in consuming fire.