• The blessed damsel leaned against
• The silver bar of Heaven.
• Her eyes knew more of rest and shade
• Than a deep water, even–
• She had three lilies in her hand
• And the stars in her hair were seven.

• Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
• No wrought flowers did adorn,
• But a white robe of Mary's gift
• 10 For service meetly worn;
• And her hair lying down her back
• Was yellow like ripe corn.

• Herseemed she scarce had been a day
• One of God's choristers;
• The wonder was not yet quite gone
• From that still look of hers;
• Albeit to them she left, her day
• Had counted as ten years.

• (To one it is ten years of years.
• 20 . . . . . Yet now, and in This place,
• Surely she leaned o'er me,—her hair
• Fell all about my face.
• Nothing: the autumn fall of leaves:
• The whole year sets apace.)

• It was the rampart of God's house
• That she was standing on;
• By God built over that sheer depth
• The which is Space begun;
• So high, that looking downward thence,
• 30 She scarce could see The Sun.

• Heard hardly, some of her new friends,
• Playing at holy games,
• Spake gentle-mouthed among themselves
• Their virginal chaste names;
• And the souls mounting up to God
• Went by her like thin flames.

• And still she bowed herself & stooped
• Into the vast waste calm,
• Till her bosom's pressure must have made
• 40 The bar she leaned on warm,
• And the lilies lay as if asleep
• Along her bended arm.

• From the fixt lull of Heaven, she saw
• Time like a pulse shake fierce
• Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove
• Within that gulf to pierce
• The swarm; and then she spake, as when
• The stars sang in their spheres.

• “I wish that he were come to me,
• 50 For he will come,” she said.
• “Have I not prayed in Heaven?— on earth,
• Lord, Lord, has he not prayed?
• Are not two prayers a perfect strength?
• And shall I feel afraid?

• “When round his head the aureole clings
• And he is clothed in white,
• I'll take his hand and go with him
• To the deep wells of light,
• And we will step down as to a stream
• 60 And bathe there in God's sight.

• “We two will stand beside that shrine,
• Occult, withheld, untrod,
• Whose lamps are stirred continually
• With prayers sent up to God;
• And see our own prayers, granted, melt
• Each like a little cloud.

• “We two will lie i' the shadow of
• That living mystic tree
• Within whose secret growth the Dove
• 70 Is sometimes felt to be,
• While every leaf that His plumes touch
• Saith His name audibly.

• “And I myself will teach to him—
• I myself, lying so,—
• The songs I sing here, which his voice
• Shall pause in, hushed & slow,
• And find some knowledge at each pause,
• Or some new thing to know.”

• (Alas! just now, in that bird's song,
• 80 Strove not her accents there
• Fain to be hearkened? When those bells
• Possessed the midday air,
• Was she not stepping to my side
• Upon a silver stair?)

• “We two,” she said, “will seek the groves
• Where the lady Mary is,
• With her five handmaidens whose names
• Are five sweet symphonies;—
• Cecily, Gertrude, Magdalen,
• 90 Margaret and Rosalys:

• “They sit in circle, with bound locks
• And brows engarlanded;
• Into the fine cloth white like flame
• Weaving the golden thread
• To fashion the birth-robes for them
• Who are just born, being dead.

• “Herself shall bring us hand in hand
• To Him round whom all souls
• Kneel, the unnumbered ransomed heads
• 100 Bowed with their aureoles;
• And Angels meeting us shall sing
• To their citherns and citoles.

• “There will I ask of Christ the Lord
• Thus much for him and me:—
• Only to live a t s once on earth
• At peace, — only to be
• As then awhile, for ever now
• Together, I and he.”

• She gazed and listened, and then said,
• 110 Less sad of speech than mild:
• “All this is when he comes.” She ceased:
• The light thrilled past her, filled
• With Angels in strong level lapse.
• Her eyes prayed, and she smiled.

• (I saw her smile.) But soon their flight
• Was vague in distant spheres.
• And then she laid her arms along
• The shining barriers,
• And laid her face between her hands,
• 120 And wept. (I heard her tears.)

—— D. G. R.1847