Read "To the Secret Rose" by W.B. Yeats online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
/ Far off, most secret, and inviolate Rose, / Enfold me in my hour of hours; where those / Who sought thee at the Holy Sepulchre, / Or in the wine-vat, dwell beyond the stir / And tumult of defeated dreams; and deep / Among pale eyelids heavy with the sleep / Men have named beauty. Your great leaves enfold / The ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold / Of the crowned Magi; and the king whose eyes / Saw the Pierced Hands and Rood of Elder rise / In druid vapour and make the torches dim;
/ Till vain frenzy awoke and he died; and him / Who met Fand walking among flaming dew, / By a grey shore where the wind never blew, / And lost the world and Emir for a kiss; / And him who drove the gods out of their liss.