Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Robert Bridges. b. 1844838. Pater Filio
SENSE with keenest edge unusèd, | |
Yet unsteel’d by scathing fire; | |
Lovely feet as yet unbruisèd | |
On the ways of dark desire; | |
Sweetest hope that lookest smiling | 5 |
O’er the wilderness defiling! | |
Why such beauty, to be blighted | |
By the swarm of foul destruction? | |
Why such innocence delighted, | |
When sin stalks to thy seduction? | 10 |
All the litanies e’er chaunted | |
Shall not keep thy faith undaunted. | |
I have pray’d the sainted Morning | |
To unclasp her hands to hold thee; | |
From resignful Eve’s adorning | 15 |
Stol’n a robe of peace to enfold thee; | |
With all charms of man’s contriving | |
Arm’d thee for thy lonely striving. | |
Me too once unthinking Nature, | |
—Whence Love’s timeless mockery took me,— | 20 |
Fashion’d so divine a creature, | |
Yea, and like a beast forsook me. | |
I forgave, but tell the measure | |
Of her crime in thee, my treasure. |