<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="center" class="head">The Greeting</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">HER pinched uncompromising face was pitiful</p><p class="line">Seeming to plead for love, and yet with what a proud</p><p class="line">Accent she said, setting my proffered love aside:--</p><p class="line">"My friend, if you had only looked with faithful eyes</p><p class="line">Into the truth I showed you, if you had not faltered</p><p class="line">Upon the sills of sight and, guessing prematurely,</p><p class="line">So misconceived the look in which I told you all</p><p class="line">As to make foolishness of it with your wild answer,</p><p class="line">You would have understood what I can never tell:</p><p class="line">You would have seen me, for I ventured forth to you:</p><p class="line">To you, unseeing, I came forth out of my secret.</p><p class="line">If haply, mirrored in your comprehending gaze,</p><p class="line">I might at last behold my spirit unknown to me,</p><p class="line">Know myself in your eyes, and solve at last my riddle."</p><p class="line">I heard her speak, I made a silence of myself</p><p class="line">That I might all be, as it were, one word of welcome,</p><p class="line">As it were hands held out all ready to receive her--</p><p class="line">Wherefore my lips were silent, hands folded before me--</p><p class="line">For her, all that I am was waiting in my eyes.</p></div><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Then she came forth to me, radiant, a spirit of light.</p><p class="line">Before whose sovereign pure splendour the condescension</p><p class="line">My fond heart had prepared was utterly ashamed:</p><p class="line">I saw her: I forgot my folly, worshipping in her</p><p class="line">That wonder of else incredible divinity</p><p class="line">That searches the world through if there be any place</p><p class="line">Unoccupied by the busy turmoil of our cares</p><p class="line">Wherein its quiet hands may find employment.</p></div></body></html> · Great War