Poem by Francis Thompson

A Foretelling of the Child's Husband

            But on a day whereof I think,
            One shall dip his hand to drink
            In that still water of thy soul,
            And its imaged tremors race
            Over thy joy-troubled face,
            As the intervolved reflections roll
            From a shaken fountain's brink,
            With swift light wrinkling its alcove.
            From the hovering wing of Love
    The warm stain shall flit roseal on thy cheek.
            Then, sweet blushet! whenas he,
    The destined paramount of thy universe,
        Who has no worlds to sigh for, ruling thee,
        Ascends his vermeil throne of empery,
              One grace alone I seek.
    Oh! may this treasure-galleon of my verse,
    Fraught with its golden passion, oared with cadent rhyme,
    Set with a towering press of fantasies,
              Drop safely down the time,
          Leaving mine islèd self behind it far,
    Soon to be sunken in the abysm of seas,
    (As down the years the splendour voyages
        From some long ruined and night-submergèd star),
    And in thy subject sovereign's havening heart
    Anchor the freightage of its virgin ore;
              Adding its wasteful more
    To his own overflowing treasury.
    So through his river mine shall reach thy sea,
              Bearing its confluent part;
              In his pulse mine shall thrill;
    And the quick heart shall quicken from the heart that's still.

        _Now pass your ways, fair bird, and pass your ways,
              If you will;
            I have you through the days.
            And flit or hold you still,
            And perch you where you list
              On what wrist,--
            You are mine through the times.
    I have caught you fast for ever in a tangle of sweet rhymes.
            And in your young maiden morn,
              You may scorn,
              But you must be
            Bound and sociate to me;
    With this thread from out the tomb my dead hand shall tether thee!_

1. Unto This Last
2. Dedication to Coventry Patmore
3. To Monica Thought Dying
4. St. Monica
5. To the Sinking Sun

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