The Three Strangers

Far are those tranquil hills, Dyed with fair evening's rose; On urgent, secret errand bent, A traveller goes. Approach him strangers three, Barefooted, cowled; their eyes Scan the lone, hastening solitary With dumb surmise. One instant in close speech With them he doth confer: God-sped, he hasteneth on, That anxious traveller…. I was that man — in a dream: And each world's night in vain I patient wait on sleep to unveil Those vivid hills again. Would that they three could know How yet burns on in me Love — from one lost in Paradise — For their grave courtesy.