Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.
The Man to the AngelA. E. (George William Russell) (18671935)
I
Pure and proud one, where are thine?
What the gain tho’ all thy years
In unbroken beauty shine?
Truth we learn in pain and sighs:
You can never enter in
To the circle of the wise.
Who have never known the gloom,
And between the dark and light
Will’d in freedom their own doom.
That our pain but follows sin;
There are fires for those who dare
Seek the throne of might to win.
Dark and lost amid the strife,
I am myriad years of pain
Nearer to the fount of life.
At the God to whom you bow,
Rest the lips of the Unknown
Tenderest upon my brow.