THE SEVENFOLD SACRAMENT
Were the river and the birds.
So close it swaddled me, and bound
My being in the pure profound
Of its own stealthy intimacy,
Had Artemis come panting by,
Silver-shod with bow and quiver
Hunting along the reedy river,
And called me to the chase, I should
Have neither heard nor understood.
Or had Zeus his dangerous daughter,
Aphrodite, from the water
Risen all shining, her soft arms
Open, all her spells and charms
Melted to one lure divine
Of her red mouth pressed to mine,
T had neither heard nor seen
Nor felt the Idalian.
Between
My soul and all its knowledge of
The universe of light and love,
Thought, being, nature, time and space,
The Mother’s heart, the Father’s face,
All that was agony or bliss,
Stretched an infinite abyss.
All that behind me! but my soul,
With no star left to point the pole,
Witless and banned of grace or goal,
Beggared of all its wealth, bereft
Of all its images, unweft
Its magic web, its tools all broken,
Its Name forgot, its Word unspoken,