The Ideal

Nor time nor all his minions Of sorrow and of pain, Shall dash with vulture pinions The cup she fills again Within the dream-dominions Of life where she doth reign.

Clothed on with bright desire And hope that makes her strong, With limbs of frost and fire, She sits above all wrong, Her heart a living lyre, And love its only song.

And in the waking pauses Of weariness and care, And when the dark hour draws his Black dagger of despair, Above effects and causes I hear her music there.

The longing’s life hath near it Of beauty we would see; The dreams it doth inherit Of immortality; Are callings of her spirit To something yet to be.