above the steel sea blade
That cuts the world's great globe in two.

The keenest eye that ever saw
Stares out of Heaven into mine,
Spins out my heart, and seems to draw
My soul's elastic very fine.

The greatest beacon ever fired
Stands up on Heaven's Hill to show
The limit of the thing desired,
Beyond which man may never go.

* * * * * *

At midnight, when the night did dance
Along the hours that led to morning,
I saw a little boat advance
Towards the great moon's beacon warning.

(The moon, God's Slave, who lights her torch,
Lest men should slip between the bars,
And run aground on Heav'n, and scorch
To death upon a bank of stars.)

The little boat, on leaning keel,
Sang up the mountains of the sea,
Bearing a man who hoped to steal
God's Slave from out eternity.

"_My love, I see you through my tears.
No pity in your face I see.
I have sailed far across the years:
Stretch out, stretch out your arms to me._

"_My love, I have an island seen,
So shadowed, God's most piercing star
Shall never see where we have been,
Shall never whisper where we are._

"_There we will wander, you and I,
Down guilty and delightful ways,
While palm-trees plait their fingers high
Against your God's enormous gaze._

"_For oh--the joy of two and two
Your Paradise shall never see,
The ecstasy of me and you,
The white delight of you and me._

"_I know the penalty--the clutch
Of God's great rocks upon my keel.
Drowned in the ocean of Too Much--
So ends your thief--yet let me steal...._"

The Slave of God she froze her face,
The Slave of God she paid no heed,
And, thund'ring down high Heaven's space,
Loud angels mocked the sailor's greed.

The diamond sun arose, and tossed
A billion gems across the sea.
"_The Slave of God is lost, is lost,
The Slave of God is lost to me...._"

He grounded on the common beach,
He trod the little towns of men,
And God removed from his reach
The cup of Heaven's passion then,
And gave him vulgar love and speech,
And gave him threescore years and ten.

TRUE PROMISES

You promised War and Thunder and Romance.
You promised true, but we were very blind
And very young, and in our ignorance