AS IN A GLASS, DARKLY

          THERE is a silent wood, where swart flowers lift
            Insolent heads in purple savagery,
            Sullenly brooding by a soundless sea.
          There the drugged winds for ever change and shift,
          Charged with barbaric incenses that sift
            Languid with sleep from tree to shadowed tree.
            Where did I breathe that air?  Where did I see
          That wood beside the lake where slow winds drift?

          I am quick with flickering fantasies to-night
            Meshed in the quivering fabric of my soul
              Like tremulous visions of another sphere.
          O heart, are they sick memories of delight
            Lost long ago?  Or glimpses of a goal
              That I shall win after long pain and fear?



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