All The Way

To Irma, Not all my treasure hath the bandit Time Locked in his glimmering caverns of the Past: Fair women dead and friendships of old rhyme, And noble dreams that had to end at last:- Ah! these indeed; and from youth's sacristy Full many a holy relic hath he torn, Vessels of mystic faith God filled for me, Holding them up to Him in life's young morn. All these are mine no more-Time hath them all, Time and his adamantine gaoler Death: Despoilure vast-yet seemeth it but small, When unto thee I turn, thy bloom and breath Filling with light and incense the last shrine, Innermost, inaccessible,-yea, thine.