Classic Poem

I TELL you who mock my behaviour,
There is not a desert in space;
Each insect and moss is a saviour,
And Nature is one thing with Grace.

Who called me a hermit misprized me;
I never renounced a desire;
The thought of the world has disguised me,
And clad with a vapour my fire.

But soon in the night of my dying
The pillar of cloud will be lit,
And the dark world, ashamed of its lying,
Behold I am fairer than it.

“He is terrible; no one can love him,
His virtue is bloodless and cold;
He thinks there is no soul above him;
His birthright it was to be old.”

O scandalous worldling, self-centred,
Can you love what you cannot descry
With a vision the light never entered?
Is your conscience less dreadful than I?

Close-sucking the bone and the marrow
Where life is the sweetest, I fed
Like an eagle, while you, like a sparrow,
Hop, hunting the streets for your bread.

As freshly as at the beginning,
The earth in green garments arrayed,
In the dance of the universe spinning,
A pregnant, immaculate maid,

Looks up with her forehead of mountains,
And shakes the pine-scent from her hair,
And laughs with the voice of her fountains,
A pagan, as savage as fair.