THE THREE STRANGERS
Reading edition
Far are those tranquil hills, Dyed with fair evening's rose; On urgent, secret errand bent, A traveller goes.
Approach him strangers three, Barefooted, cowled; their eyes Scan the lone, hastening solitary With dumb surmise.
One instant in close speech With them he doth confer: God-sped, he hasteneth on, That anxious traveller …
I was that man—in a dream: And each world's night in vain I patient wait on sleep to unveil Those vivid hills again.
Would that they three could know How yet burns on in me Love—from one lost in Paradise— For their grave courtesy.