There was a time in boyhood, ere life ceased
To hold a miracle in every hour,
We saw a City shining in the East
That drew us towards it with a magic power.

I saw its spires in glittering array,
And called you to me, while, with shaded sight,
We looked and wondered how far off it lay.
And looked again along the roadway white.

I told you how right fair it was, and you,
Half-willing only, placed your hand in mine–
'T was but a mirage–aye, that all men knew,
But yet none mortal ever might divine.

And now the whole width of the Atlantic main
Divides the fortune of our temporal ways;
Perhaps we shall not meet on earth again
Except in memories of those bygone days.

With strengthened vision you, maybe, have wrought
The consummation of that early dream,
Whilst I, too certain in Youth's pride, am brought
To cry the passing of its transient gleam.

Indeed, I think now that I did not see
The Eternal City of man's endless quest–
'T was Art, not Life, that first awakened me,
Though, once awakened, I might never rest.

I saw the beauty, first, of Form alone;
To Knowledge, not to Wisdom, I aspired:
But hardly even God to Youth makes known
The things 'more excellent' of Him required.

Who were the captains of my early song?
Swinburne and Dowson, Symons, Oscar Wilde:
Sensuous or violent, but seldom strong;
By them unconsciously I was beguiled.

Yet it was natural I should mistake
Their loves and lutes and towers of ivory
For that Adventure which the soul must make
Or else for ever ignominious be.
And, at the root, the difference is not great;
'T is but a strangeness more profound I seek:
The Boy's romance, to him, is filled with Fate,
Although his elders of it lightly speak.

So here, inversely, and from time to time,
Is told, dear friend, my pilgrimage since then–
From decoration and embroidered rhyme
To some poor reading of the minds of men.

I sometimes ponder if each soul that wins
An entrance to the far-off gates thereof,
May make atonement for a spirit's sins,
If once it dwelt with it, on earth, in love.

I wonder if those hours, though so long past,
When we in word and deed went hand in hand,
Will be a sacrament, and, at the last,
Together in that City we shall stand?