And where the fine gold faded all the sky
  Shone green as the outer sea when April glows,
Inlaid with flakes and feathers fledged to fly
  Of cloud suspense in rapture and repose,
With large live petals, broad as love bids lie
  Full open when the sun salutes the rose,
And small rent sprays wherewith the heavens most high
  Were strewn as autumn strews the garden-close
      With ruinous roseleaves whirled
      About their wan chill world,
  Through wind-worn bowers that now no music knows,
      Spoil of the dim dusk year
      Whose utter night is near,
  And near the flower of dawn beyond it blows;
    Till east and west were fire and light,
As though the dawn to come had flushed the coming night.

XX.

The highways paced of men that toil or play,
  The byways known of none but lonely feet,
Were paven of purple woven of night and day
  With hands that met as hands of friends might meet—­
As though night’s were not lifted up to slay
  And day’s had waxed not weaker.  Peace more sweet
Than music, light more soft than shadow, lay
  On downs and moorlands wan with day’s defeat,
      That watched afar above
      Life’s very rose of love
  Let all its lustrous leaves fall, fade, and fleet,
      And fill all heaven and earth
      Full as with fires of birth
  Whence time should feed his years with light and heat: 
    Nay, not life’s, but a flower more strong
Than life or time or death, love’s very rose of song.

XXI.

Song visible, whence all men’s eyes were lit
  With love and loving wonder:  song that glowed
Through cloud and change on souls that knew not it
  And hearts that wist not whence their comfort flowed,
Whence fear was lightened of her fever-fit,
  Whence anguish of her life-compelling load. 
Yea, no man’s head whereon the fire alit,
  Of all that passed along that sunset road
      Westward, no brow so drear,
      No eye so dull of cheer,
  No face so mean whereon that light abode,
      But as with alien pride
      Strange godhead glorified
  Each feature flushed from heaven with fire that showed
    The likeness of its own life wrought
By strong transfiguration as of living thought.

XXII.

Nor only clouds of the everlasting sky,
  Nor only men that paced that sunward way
To the utter bourne of evening, passed not by
  Unblest or unillumined:  none might say,
Of all things visible in the wide world’s eye,
  That all too low for all that grace it lay: 
The lowliest lakelets of the moorland nigh,
  The narrowest pools where shallowest wavelets play,
      Were filled from heaven above
      With light like fire of love,