The Equinox (Volume I, Number VI)

50 THE EQUINOX In the fields all faery with flowers there lay The placid cows—that had nothing to say, Jeanne, No flame of words from maddening blood, But complacent chewing of the cud. I dared not whisper the sudden fear Of my heart in your miracle of an ear, Jeanne! I tightened my lips, and my hand on yours; So that you might think I loved you more. But now in the midnight the thought endures, And the love—ah what is the dream we adore? Suppose the infinite peace of the heart, Jeanne, The crest and crown of labour and art, Of the mystic quest, of the toil of the saint, The mount on whose slopes the strongest faint, Jeanne I Suppose that peace of God, that House Of Delight of the Bridegroom and the Spouse, Were only the calm of the chewing cows, Jeanne! Suppose that in all the worlds inane There were one thing only vexed and vain, Turbulent, troubled, and insane, Jeanne I Suppose that the universal plan Had but one flaw, and that flaw were man!