About your brow a starry wreath,
About your feet a wilderness,
Where young hot hopes grow cold beneath
The tangled bondage of the press.
Set like a saint within a niche—
A strait and narrow niche—you hide,
And weave a veil about you, which
Can turn our steel, Saint Bride, Saint Bride.
The eyes of coarse and pond’rous man
Are sceptic and satirical.
“ What, little saint, and still you scan
Old heaven for that miracle? ”
Oh heart deceived, yet harmèd not,
Child-widow of a truth that died,
Bearer in mind of things forgot,
Bride of a dream, Saint Bride, Saint Bride.
About you and about you thunders
The wise young public on its ’bus,
Exploding all your faery blunders,
Explaining neatly—“ Thus and thus
Hath science banished heaven now,
And see—your Groom is crucified— ”
On heaven’s breast you lean your brow
And laugh, and love—Saint Bride, Saint Bride.