The Wild Knight and other Poems: 'Vulgarised'

All round they murmur, 'O profane, / Keep thy heart's secret hid as gold'; / But I, by God, would sooner be / Some knight in shattering wars of old,

In brown outlandish arms to ride, / And shout my love to every star / With lungs to make a poor maid's name / Deafen the iron ears of war.

Here, where these subtle cowards crowd, / To stand and so to speak of love, / That the four corners of the world / Should hear it and take heed thereof.

That to this shrine obscure there be / One witness before all men given, / As naked as the hanging Christ, / As shameless as the sun in heaven.

These whimperers -- have they spared to us / One dripping woe, one reeking sin? / These thieves that shatter their own graves / To prove the soul is dead within.

They talk; by God, is it not time / Some of Love's chosen broke the girth, / And told the good all men have known / Since the first morning of the earth?