Recompense

To Beauty and to Truth I heaped
My sacrificial fires.
I fed them hot with selfish thoughts
And many proud desires.

I stripped my days of dear delights
To cast them in the flame,
Till life seemed naked as a rock,
And pleasure but a name.

And still I sorrowed patiently,
And waited day and night,
Expecting Truth from very far
And Beauty from her height.

Then laughter ran among the stars;
And this I heard them tell:
“Beside his threshold is the shrine
Where Truth and Beauty dwell!”