I
I sang the Dolorous Stroke of Disillusion,
Yet never have I broken faith with Joy:
Flame-broidered trance and starless cold confusion
Of slain and flying dreams shall not destroy
The radiant oath to that bright Suzerain
Whose lightning-lovely succour ambushed lies
Even in the most impossible strait of pain.
Mystical paradox, divine surprise
Of rapture! By intensities alone
Their spirits enter in to exultation
For whom the burning winds of their sad zone
Bear down the Dove of the Imagination,
Who suffer superbly, in scarlet violetted,
As the Sacred Kings of the Lillie mourned their dead.*
* See Favine's "Book of Chivalry."