THE PERFECT HOUR
BE it on my blazon shown
How I fought the fiends alone,
Ere I rose to this content,
Open, true, magnificent.
My heart from the underworld
Rides the bright sea-foam upcurled;
My heart suns in air between
Medlar-pear and nectarine;
Terrors run to me at dawn
Tamer than the velvet fawn;
Not to me hath Love denied
His great star of eventide.
Fate, where is thy splintered spear
Met me in the tourney year?
Once thou wert in overthrow,
Then I laughed, and let thee go.
Wouldst thou yet make sport of me,
Find me kingly, fervent, free!
Though there come the foreordained,
In thy city have I not reigned?