Publisher's Synopsis
The wasting thistle whitens on my crest, The barren grasses blow upon my spear, A green, pale pennon: blazon of wild faith And love of fruitless things: yea, of my love, Among the golden loves of all the knights, Alone: most hopeless, sweet, and blasphemous, The love of God: I hear the crumbling creeds Like cliffs washed down by water, change, and pass; I hear a noise of words, age after age, A new cold wind that blows across the plains, And all the shrines stand empty; and to me All these are nothing: priests and schools may doubt Who never have believed; but I have loved. Ah friends, I know it passing well, the love Wherewith I love; it shall not bring to me Return or hire or any pleasant thing-Ay, I have tried it: Ay, I know its roots. Earthquake and plague have burst on it in vain And rolled back shattered-Babbling neophytes! Blind, startled fools-think you I know it not? Think you to teach me? Know I not His ways? Strange-visaged blunders, mystic cruelties. All! all! I know Him, for I love Him. Go! So, with the wan waste grasses on my spear, I ride for ever, seeking after God. My hair grows whiter than my thistle plume, And all my limbs are loose; but in my eyes The star of an unconquerable praise: For in my soul one hope for ever sings, That at the next white corner of a road My eyes may look on Him... . Hush-I shall know The place when it is found: a twisted path Under a twisted pear-tree-this I saw In the first dream I had ere I was born, Wherein He spoke... . But the grey clouds come down In hail upon the icy plains: I ride, Burning for ever in consuming fire. A dark manor-house shuttered and unlighted, outlined against a pale sunset: in front a large, but neglected, garden. To the right, in the foreground, the porch of a chapel, with coloured windows lighted. Hymns within. Above the porch a grotesque carved bracket, supporting a lantern. Astride of it sits CAPTAIN REDFEATHER, a flagon in his hand. REDFEATHER. I have drunk to all I know of, To every leaf on the tree, To the highest bird of the heavens, To the lowest fish of the sea. What toast, what toast remaineth, Drunk down in the same good wine, By the tippler's cup in the tavern, And the priest's cup at the shrine?