orn have turn'd
away,
But I sought it with soul-gladness, e'en with pride, for to my
seeming
A pure gem is worth the lifting though it lie amongst the clay.

She was fair, a lumin'd beauty rippling o'er each chisell'd feature,
Changing ever like the sunshine playing on the summer sea,
Revelations of God's spirit permeating through his creature,
Making loveliness all perfect by infused divinity.

What to me though all her dow'ry were the wealth of love and
kindness,
And a heart full fraught with feelings vein'd with gentleness
and grace?
Which the worldling holds as nothing, smitten with judicial
blindness,
But which I o'er all things prizing, wed her in the weak world's
face.

Scared my kinsmen were and bitter for the shame and the dishonour,
Said they, I had brought upon them and the noble name I bore;
And my sire with passion burning launch'd his deepest curses on her,
And as though I were a felon, drove me fiercely from his door.

I was destined for some puppet, some gold image of his choosing,
Doubtless, who was made to worship like the golden calf of old,
With no merit but her riches, but such shame my soul refusing,
I was cast forth without blessing, poor and guideless from the fold.

Poor?--Not poor, for she went with me, pouring still with patient
spirit
Balm upon my wounded feelings, peace upon my burning soul;
So that though man's love was reft me, 'twas the better to inherit
That which far transcends man's favour,--sentience of Heaven's
sweetest dole.

Words of scorn and deep contemning gave I back for their reviling,
For my soul waxed wroth within me to be judged by such as they,
Fools so sage in their great folly, that they shake their bells, and
smiling
With an imbecile self-blindness, sneer the wise of heart away.

Let them wear their masking purple, threadbare now with vilest uses,
All the ancient gloss and brightness faded from it through their
stains,
_They_ may be disgraced, degraded, but true nobleness, ne'er loses
By relinquishing its trappings, whilst the spirit still remains.

Did I shame them that I ceded all the forms and false adorning
That doth deck them for their stations heedless of the stuff within,
And stood forth in my own fashion, such as God had made me, scorning
To be made a man of tinsel, to be honoured f