God would not let the spheric lights accost This God-loved man, and bade the earth stand off With all her beckoning hills whose golden stuff Under the feet of the royal sun is crossed. Yet such things were to him not wholly lost, -- Permitted, with his wandering eyes lightproof, To catch fair visions rendered full enough By many a ministrant accomplished ghost, -- Still seeing, to sounds of softly-turned book-leaves, Sappho's crown - rose, and Meleager's Spring, And Gregory's starlight on Greek-burnished eves: Till Sensuous and Unsensuous seemed one thing, Viewed from one level, -- earth's reapers at the sheaves Scarce plainer than Heaven's angels on the wing. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A FLORIDA SUNDAY by SIDNEY LANIER THE LAST CHANTEY by RUDYARD KIPLING A CONSECRATION by JOHN MASEFIELD THE AEOLIAN HARP; AT THE SURF INN by HERMAN MELVILLE LOOKING FORWARD by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON TO CHLOE by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS |