As I was turning aside from the struggle

And crying “It cannot be”

One came and spoke to me

Strange lighted words

Like the silence of singing-birds

In a dark tree.

She said to me:

“The lonely triumphant have known

No bed-fellow save me—

A dream carved in stone.

The mystery of beauty alone

May you seduce

But nothing else choose”

And then she was gone

And I blessed

The hardness of the struggle that would lay me

On this dream’s breast.