The Quest

I bared my heart to the winds and my cry went after you —
A brown west wind blew past and the east my secret knew,
A red east wind blew far to the lonesome bogland's edge,
And the little pools stirred sighing within their girdling sedge.

The north wind hurled it south — the black north wind of grief —
And the white south wind came crooning through every frozen leaf;
Yet never a woe of mine, blown wide down starlit space,
Hath quickened the pulse of your heart, or shadowed your rose-red face.

I reach my arms to the Dawn and call your name — your name,
O Sweet, whom I seek untiring, are you core of the gold-green flame?
Are you the gate of the sun? Are you life in the opening flower?
Since the garnered beauty of earth God lavished on you for dower.

The moon-gold web of your hair is a mesh that I cannot break,
In the shadowy wells of your eyes I stoop Love's thirst to slake,
And find the water as bitter as Death's unwelcome cup —
Still, slave to your wordless bidding, I quaff the bitter up.

I see you in foam of the waves, and clasp it with passionate hands —
Yet ever it vanishes, soundless, and vague as a dream, in the sands.
Are you, too, a dream, O Heartbreaker? — shall I greet you some day or some night
To know you for Sorrow eternal, or the star of unending Delight?