| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895. |
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| The Man to the Angel |
| | | George William Russell (1867–1935) |
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| I HAVE wept a million tears. | |
| Pure and proud one, where are thine? | |
| What the gain, though all thy years | |
| In unbroken beauty shine? | |
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| All your beauty cannot win | 5 |
| Truth we learn in pain and sighs: | |
| You can never enter in | |
| To the Circle of the Wise. | |
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| They are but the slaves of light | |
| Who have never known the gloom, | 10 |
| And between the dark and bright | |
| Willed in freedom their own doom. | |
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| Think not in your pureness there | |
| That our pain but follows sin: | |
| There are fires for those who dare | 15 |
| Seek the throne of might to win. | |
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| Pure one, from your pride refrain: | |
| Dark and lost amid the strife, | |
| I am myriad years of pain | |
| Nearer to the fount of life. | 20 |
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| When defiance fierce is thrown | |
| At the god to whom you bow, | |
| Rest the lips of the Unknown | |
| Tenderest upon my brow. | |
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