To have none else beside,
That both might keep unflecked their virgin snows.

Yet by our God's great law
Such marriage issue saw,
As they who cast away may keep,
  Who sow not reap.
  In Chastity entombed
  His manhood bloomed,
  And children not of earth
  Had spotless birth.
With might unmortal was he strong
  That he begot
  Of what was not,
Within the barren womb of silence, song.
  Yea, many sons he had
  To make his sole heart glad—
Romping the boundless meadows of the air,
Skipping the cloudy hills, and climbing bold
The heavens' nightly stairs of starry gold.
  Nay, winning heaven's door
  To mingle evermore
With deathless troops of angel harmony.
  He filled the house of God
  With servants at his nod,
A music-host of moving pagentry.
Lo, this priest, and that an acolyte:
  Ah, such we name aright
  Creative art,
To body forth love slumbering at the heart . . .
  Fools, they who pity him,
  Imagine dim