There lives a goddess in the West,
An island in death-lonesome seas;
No towered towns are hers confessed,
No castled forts and palaces.
Hers, simple worshipers at best,
The buds, the birds, the bees.
And she hath wonder-worlds of song
So heavenly beautiful, and shed
So sweetly from her honeyed tongue,
The savage creatures, it is said,
Hark marble-still their wilds among,
And nightingales fall dead.
I know her not, nor have I known;
I only feel that she is there;
For when my heart is most alone
There broods communion on the air,
Concedes an influence not its own,
Miraculously fair.
Then fain is it to sing and sing,
And then again to fly and fly
Beyond the flight of cloud or wing,
Far under azure arcs of sky.
Its love at her chaste feet to fling,
Behold her face and die.