Charles Erskine Scott Wood

I SAY you are a spirit,

So delicate and pale.

You are not flesh,

But in you love is meshed

Which makes earth heaven, or near it—

So all words fail.

Your face is moon-white, and withal

Sad as the moon;

And in your eyes a light,

As of a temple lit by night

Where tired souls creep and fall,

Asking God’s boon.

Prostrate am I before your soul,

For I have seen

That it is luminous as love, as pure as pain,

And kept forever washed by sorrow’s rain.

A chosen one to stand before the goal

And lead the bruised one in.