Mirabile Dictu

I

There dwells a goddess in the West,
An Island in death-lonesome seas;
No towered towns are hers confessed,
No castled forts or palaces;
Hers, simple worshipers at best,
The buds, the birds, the bees.

II

And she hath wonder-words of song,
So heavenly beautiful and shed
So sweetly from her honeyed tongue,
The savage creatures, it is said,
Hark, marble-still, their wilds among,
And nightingales fall dead.

III

I know her not, nor have I known:
I only feel that she is there:
For when my heart is most alone,
Her deep communion fills the air,--
Her influence calls me from my own,--
Miraculously fair.

IV

Then fain am I to sing and sing,
And then again to fly and fly,
Beyond the flight of cloud or wing,
Far under azure arcs of sky;
My love at her chaste feet to fling,
Behold her face and--die.