Page:The roamer and other poems (1920).djvu/115

Unseen, unknown, unsensed, ineffable;
And all my being with bright passion shook.
Such moments, like the heavenly messenger,
Announce a birth divine; they cannot die;
And never after faded that pure ray.
It crept on human faces, forms of youth,
The smile of woman, hero, saint, and child,
And lit my youth from many a great design
Of mighty artists, where the risen soul,
Above the tomb as on a pedestal
Seated immortal, waited heaven's ascent;
Or crosses, on Judæan mounts relieved,
Led up the eye; or golden clouds enthroned
Virgin and martyr,—Italy enskied
Above her long-lined hills; but most it shone,
Where marble forms immovable of gods
Stayed the one moment of eternity
That ever is, and flashed through time and tide
The radiant presence of a greater world
Of timeless beauty, omnipresent thought,
The element of immortality,
Wherein the universe is lightly borne.
Then came a greater wonder. The ideal
Shone on me from the living forms of men
More than from paint, or clay, or gleaming stone,
Or the fair shapes that light the brooding mind.