Word
Gems
What is a
man but the sum of his thoughts?
Poetry:
- Francis Thompson's
-
- A Fallen Yew
... The sweetest wife on sweetest marriage-day,
Their souls at grapple in mid-way, --
Sweet to her sweet may say:
I take you to my inmost heart, my true!
Ah, fool! but there is one heart you
Shall never take him to!
The hold that falls not when the town is got,
The heart's heart, whose immured plot
Hath keys yourself keep not!
Its ports you cannot burst -- you are withstood
For him that to your listening blood
Sends precepts as he would.
Its gates are deaf to Love, high summoner;
Yea, Love's great warrant runs not there:
You are your prisoner.
Yourself are with yourself the sole consortress
In that unleaguerable fortress;
It knows you not for portress.
Its keys are at the cincture hung of God;
Its gates are trepidant to His nod;
By Him its floors are trod.
And if His feet shall rock those floors in wrath,
Or blest aspersion sleek His path,
Is only choice it hath.
Yea, in that ultimate heart's occult abode
To lie as in an oubliette of God,
Or in a bower untrod,
Built by a secret Lover for His Spouse; --
Sole choice is this your life allows...
|