Page:The roamer and other poems (1920).djvu/82

As if the gates of heaven had sent thee forth?"
And, going, the Roamer heard him murmur low—
"Keep him, O Shepherd of the ways of fire!"
And Victor blessed him with still grieving eyes;
And long they watched him where he made his way
Whom willingly he would have called his own,
Had love consented that their hearts should join.
⁠Then, plunging in the darkness, first he knew
The miracle that dawned upon their eyes:
For light fell from him and in light he walked.
And as a star that rifts the drifting clouds
He passed within the roaring gulf profane;
The spectral rack swept o'er him, sin closed round;
And no man saw him; dark to them he was,
But to his sight their secrecy lay bare;
Nor legends of the ancient time alone,
Nor tales by travellers in far countries told,
Nor gods dethroned and cities of the dead,
Beheld he merely; many a wanton sect
Befouled Christ's name, and many a godless school
Blasphemed, miscalled by wisdom's golden name,
Philosophy; they cursed they knew not what.
He paused not where their meagre dogmas fell
No more than where the fool his orgies kept,
Yet heard and saw; the worst no lips can frame;

Nor now shall memory draw it from the mire.