Kiss me and comfort my heart
   Maiden honest and fine. 
  I am the pilgrim boy
   Lame, but hunting the shrine;

  Fleeing away from the sweets,
   Seeking the dust and rain,
  Sworn to the staff and road,
   Scorning pleasure and pain;

  Nevertheless my mouth
   Would rest like a bird an hour
  And find in your curls a nest
   And find in your breast a bower: 

  Nevertheless my eyes
   Would lose themselves in your own,
  Rivers that seek the sea,
   Angels before the throne: 

  Kiss me and comfort my heart,
   For love can never be mine: 
  Passion, hunger and pain,
   These are the only wine

  Of the pilgrim bound to the road. 
   He would rob no man of his own. 
  Your heart is another’s I know,
   Your honor is his alone.

  The feasts of a long drawn love,
   The feasts of a wedded life,
  The harvests of patient years,
   And hearthstone and children and wife: 

  These are your lords I know. 
   These can never be mine
  This is the price I pay
   For the foolish search for the shrine: 

  This is the price I pay
   For the joy of my midnight prayers,
  Kneeling beneath the moon
   With hills for my altar stairs;

  This is the price I pay
   For the throb of the mystic wings,
  When the dove of God comes down
   And beats round my heart and sings;

  This is the price I pay
   For the light I shall some day see
  At the ends of the infinite earth
   When truth shall come to me.

  And what if my body die
   Before I meet the truth? 
  The road is dear, more dear
   Than love or life or youth.

  The road, it is the road,
   Mystical, endless, kind,
  Mother of visions vast,
   Mother of soul and mind;

  Mother of all of me
   But the blood that cries for a mate
  That cries for a farewell kiss
   From the child of God at the gate.