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| EVEN as a hawk’s in the large heaven’s hollow | |
| Are the great ways and gracious of your love, | |
| No lesser heart or wearier wing may follow | |
| In those’ broad gyres where you rest and move. | |
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| Most merciless, most high, most proud, most lonely— | 5 |
| In the clear space between the sky and sea | |
| Wheel her huge orbits, where the sea-winds only | |
| Wander the sun-roads of Immensity. | |
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| Yet have I known your heart and of what fashion | |
| Your love, how great, how hardly to be borne— | 10 |
| Your tenderness, too perfect for compassion, | |
| Your divine strength, too pure and proud for scorn. | |
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| You are most beautiful; though it is given | |
| But few to find you, fewer still to keep | |
| Your high path through the solitude of heaven, | 15 |
| My lonely one, your watch upon the Deep. | |
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| Now toward the gold glow of the sunset’s splendour | |
| Veer your great vans—what haven in the west | |
| Now draws you—while the mellowing light makes tender | |
| Your dripping plumes—what islands of the blest? | 20 |
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| Lift me, O lift me up to you forever, | |
| Beautiful Terror! Let your sacred might | |
| Stoop to me here and save—O let me never | |
| Sink from you now to share a lesser flight! | |
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| Even as I pray my wings of longing fail me, | 25 |
| And my heart flags. In solitude you move | |
| Down the night’s shore: not praying shall avail me | |
To lift me, fallen from your faultless love.
The Freeman | |
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