DIEU D’AMOUR [A CASTLE IN CYPRUS]

17Beauty hath two great wings

That lift me to her height,

Though steep her secret dwelling clings

’Twixt earth and light.

Thither my startled soul she brings

In a murmur and stir of plumes,

And blue air cloven,

And in aerial rooms

Windowed on starry springs

Shows me the singing looms

Whereon her worlds are woven;

Then, in her awful breast,

Those heights descending,

Bears me, a child at rest,

At the day’s ending,

Till earth, familiar as a nest,

Again receives me,

And Beauty veiled in night,

Benignly bending,

Drops from the sinking west

One feather of our flight,

And on faint sandals leaves me.

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