Poem by Alfred Noyes

The Symbolist

    Help me to seek that unknown land!
      I kneel before the shrine.
    Help me to feel the hidden hand
      That ever holdeth mine.

    I kneel before the Word, I kneel
      Before the Cross of flame
    I cry, as thro' the gloom I steal,
      The glory of the Name.

    Help me to mourn, and I shall love;
      What grief is like to mine?
    Crown me with thorn, the stars above
      Shall in the circlet shine!

    The Temple opens wide: none sees
      The love, the dream, the light!
    O, blind and finite, are not these
      Blinding and infinite?

    The veil, the veil is rent: the skies
      Are white with wings of fire,
    Where victim souls triumphant rise
      In torment of desire.

    Help me to seek: I would not find,
      For when I find I know
    I shall have clasped the hollow wind
      And built a house of snow.

1. A Ride for the Queen
2. Moving through the Dew
3. Princeton, May, 1917
4. The Elfin Artist
5. Haunted in Old Japan

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