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.