All the Way
To Irma,
Not all my treasure hath the bandit Time
Locked in his glimmering caverns of the Past:
Fair women dead and friendships of old rhyme,
And noble dreams that had to end at last:-
Ah! these indeed; and from youth’s sacristy
Full many a holy relic hath he torn,
Vessels of mystic faith God filled for me,
Holding them up to Him in life’s young morn.
All these are mine no more-Time hath them all,
Time and his adamantine gaoler Death:
Despoilure vast-yet seemeth it but small,
When unto thee I turn, thy bloom and breath
Filling with light and incense the last shrine,
Innermost, inaccessible,-yea, thine.
