I
The eyes, that, having seen the saintly light
Blossom white-petalled out of a white sea
In a miraculous rose of breathing light.
See a patched harlot reel unsteadily,
From lamp to lamp dragging a yellow train;
The Ears, that pant with anger and quick fear
At a beloved voice heard suddenly,
Or at a half-felt echo in the brain
Of music it had once been life to hear;
The Nostrils, weary gates that open now
Upon a garden where the flowers are sick
And the dead fruit hangs rotting on the bough;
The Mouth that now eats ashes and drinks dust,
And was so keen to savour and so quick
To sort its lust from any other's lust;
The many hands that in the body move
To touch the world and pasture their delight
Where sacredly they did with things unite
In mutual acts of love;
Cry to thee, with their little breath they cry.
II
The bones, that are the pillars, and the flesh
That is the gracious substance of the house,
And the smooth skin that spreads so fair and fresh
A covering for the walls, and all the beams
And rafters that as joints and sinews mesh
The body's framework, and the blood that streams
Like heaven's own light seen through a crimson rose
Through all the painted windows of the south;
Cry out of tarnished colour and strained wood
And out of joists unceiled and by the mouth
Of whistling panes, that let the salt winds through;
All these, that being evil have known good
And hunger backward for the good they knew,
Cry to thee with a long and shaken cry.
III
The Will, that ruled a city all its own,
And now, without sedition, like a King
Thrust quietly aside, is overthrown
The Memory, that of any former thing
Could character the poise, the form, the size,
The impress of its shape upon the air,
And now, forgetting its blithe energies,
Lies drowsing in the sun, or, as it lies,
Repeats a fond arithmetic of sighs;
Identity, that wanders like the smoke,
Following a wind that stays not anywhere;
Conscience, that would not waken though God spoke;
Cry to thee with an unavailing cry.
IV
The Soul, that in the prison of its pride,
This house, this body, broken down with ills,
That to its sense is strongly edified,
Moated about, and guarded by a strong
And shining, mailed invulnerable throng,
Seeming so quiet-centred, but distils
The gentlest essence of mortality;
The Soul, that in its scales of right and wrong,
Has weighed the justice that could make it live
And doom it, helpless, to eternity;
The Soul, the one thing human that can give
Wings to the mortal longing to be free;
The Soul, O Health, being sick and like to die,
Cries to thee with an unavailing cry.
