Prologue: The Nuts of Knowledge

FOR BRIAN WHEN HE IS GROWN UP THIS HANDFUL OF THE NUTS OF KNOWLEDGE I HAVE GATHERED ON THE SECRET STREAMS.

I thought, beloved, to have brought to you

A gift of quietness and ease and peace,

Cooling your brow as with the mystic dew

Dropping from twilight trees.

Homeward I go not yet; the darkness grows;

Not mine the voice to still with peace divine:

From the first fount the stream of quiet flows

Through other hearts than mine.

Yet of my night I give to you the stars,

And of my sorrow here the sweetest gains,

And out of hell, beyond its iron bars,

My scorn of all its pains.