If Beauty came to you,
Ah, would you know her grace,
And could you in your shadowed prison view
Unscathed her face?

Stepping as noiselessly
As moving moth-wings, so
Might she come suddenly to you or me
And we not know.

Amid these clangs and cries,
Alas, how should we hear
The shy, dim-woven music of her sighs
As she draws near.

Threading through monstrous, black,
Uncharitable hours,
Where the soul shapes its own abhorred rack
Of wasted powers?