Sunlit Hours

<SPAN name="III"></SPAN>III<br/> <br/> <br/> This carven column whereon monsters cling<br/> And twist among themselves with ravening jaws,<br/> They seem to pant, and grip with mighty claws,<br/> And from each other anguished cries to wring&mdash;<br/> This was my soul before it knew thyself,<br/> <br/> Oh, thou the ever new, the ever old!<br/> Who earnest forth to me from deeps of self<br/> Ardour between thy hands and joy untold.<br/> <br/> I breathe a scent of faint familiar flow'rs<br/> <span style="margin-left: 1em;">Within thy heart that sleep;</span><br/> And thirsty memory drinks deep<br/> Of kindred echoes from past years of ours;<br/> At the same instants in our childhood, tears,<br/> Unknowing, we have wept;<br/> We must have known like gladness and like fears,<br/> Like trysts with grief have kept;<br/> Long since was I bound to thee as thine own<br/> By One who came, inscrutable, unknown,<br/> Upon my life's adventurous battle field.<br/> Oh! had I searched His face, forgetting fear,<br/> I should have known thine eyes this many a year,<br/> That there between his eyelids were reveal'd!<br/> <br/> <br/> <br/> <br/> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />