LOVE'S TRAPPIST

     
     
           There is a place where lute and lyre are broken.
     Where scrolls are torn and on a wild wind go,
     Where tablets stand wiped naked for a token,
     Where laurels wither and the daisies grow.
           Lo: I too join the brotherhood of silence,
     I am Love's Trappist and you ask in vain,
     For man through Love's gate, even as through Death's gate,
     Goeth alone and comes not back again.
           Yet here I pause, look back across the threshold.
     Cry to my brethren, though the world be old,
     Prophets and sages, questioners and doubters,
     O world, old world, the best hath ne'er been told!