The Welcome

But see: my lady comes. I hear her feet
Upon the sward; she standeth by my side.
Just such a face Raphael had deified,
If in his day they two had chanced to meet.

And I, tossed by the tide of circumstance,
Lifting weak hands against a host of swords,
Paused suddenly to hear her gentle words
Making powerless the lightnings of mischance.

I, who was but a maker of poor songs,
That one might sing behind his prison bars,
I, who it seemed fate singled out for wrongs--

She smiled on me as smile the nearest stars.
From her deep soul I draw my peace, and thus,
One wreath of rhyme I weave for both of us.