Beloved, gaze in thine own heart,
The holy tree is growing there
From joy the holy branches start,
And all the trembling flowers they bear The changing colours of its fruit
Have dowered the stars with merry light;
The surety of its hidden root
Has planted quiet in the night;
The shaking of its leafy head
Has given the waves their melody,
And made my lips and music wed,
Murmuring a wizard song for thee.
There the loves a circle go
The flaming circle of our day
Gyring, spiring to and fro
In those great ignorant leafy ways;
Remembering all that shaken hair
And how the wingèd sandals dart,
Thine eyes grow full of tender care
Beloved, gaze in thine own heart.
Gaze no more in the bitter glass
The demons, with their subtle guile Lift up before us when they pass
Or only gaze a little while;
For there a fatal image grows
That the stormy night receives
Roots half hidden under snows,
Broken boughs and blackened leaves.
For all things turn to barrenness
In the dim glass the demons hold,
The glass of outer weariness
Made when God slept in times of old.
There, through the broken branches, g The ravens of unresting thought
Flying, crying, to and fro,
Cruel claw and hungry throat,
Or else they stand and sniff the wind And shake their ragged wings; alas!
Thy tender eyes grow all unkind
Gaze no more in the bitter glass.