Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

Frederic William Henry Myers (1843–1901)

From ‘Saint Paul’

OFT shall that flesh imperil and outweary

Soul that would stay it in the straiter scope.

Oft shall the chill day and the even dreary

Force on my heart the frenzy of a hope:—

Lo, as some ship, outworn and overladen,

Strains for the harbour where her sails are furled;—

Lo, as some innocent and eager maiden

Leans o’er the wistful limit of the world,

Dreams of the glow and glory of the distance,

Wonderful wooing and the grace of tears,

Dreams with what eyes and what a sweet insistence

Lovers are waiting in the hidden years;—

Lo, as some venturer, from his stars receiving

Promise and presage of sublime emprise,

Wears evermore the seal of his believing

Deep in the dark of solitary eyes;

Yea, to the end, in palace or in prison,

Fashions his fancies of the realm to be,

Fallen from the height or from the deeps arisen,

Ringed with the rocks and sundered of the sea;—

So even I, and with a pang more thrilling,

So even I, and with a hope more sweet,

Yearn for the sign, O Christ! of thy fulfilling,

Faint for the flaming of thine advent feet.