To a Christian Poet

I HAVE been as one dead.
I have forgotten how the sun-rays dart;
I have ignored the glamour of the stars;
Cold, cold has been my heart.
Have I not often in derision said,
‘Life is a little thing of little worth’ —
The while beneath my feet a burgeoning earth
Healed with young herbage all her ancient scars?
Yea, I have sung this thing and deemed it true,
That life is a brief cruelty and death
An endless respite.

You
Have sung of Nazareth.

You have sung sweetly of the Light, the mild
Insistent Light that penetrates the dust,
And says unto the soul of man, ‘My child,
Renew your child-like trust.’
And from your eyes have I not felt a Light,
A Light of mild, insistent power,
Defeat with gentleness my scornful vision?
Have I not learned the darkness of derision,
And from the calm grace of your spirit’s might
Drawn strength and healing in my bitterest hour?

Your miracles, your ritual, your laws
Are to my unfaith as a dream-like play:
But radiant from your heart is that which draws
My spirit out of shadow to the day;
Draws with the silent tension of star on star
Till I am forced above
This wreck of system-faiths and borne afar
By flawless wafture of the wings of Love,

Most true that you have won me to rely
On the foreshadowing soul and to despise
All acrid cynic-thoughts — made hideous by
The grandeur of your deep rewarding eyes.

Ah, friend, your eyes have won me in despite
Of narrowing creed or doctrine’s secular breath;
Your eyes have won me with unwavering Light
To sing the death of Death!