THE SEVENFOLD SACRAMENT
Yet suffereth in itself the curse
Of the infinite universe,
Having made its own confession
Of the mystery of transgression;
Where it is wedded solemnly
With the ring of space and eternity,
And where the oil, the Holiest Breath,
With Its first whisper dedicateth
Its new life to a further death.
Iwas cold as earth: the night
Had given way. One star hung bright
Over the church, now gray;
I rose up to greet the ray
That thrilled through elm and chestnut, lit
The grass, made diamonds of it,
And bade the weir’s long smile of spray
Leap with laughter for the day.
The birds woke over all the weald;
The sullen peasants slouched afield;
The lilies swayed before the breeze
That murmured matins in the trees;
The trout leapt in the shingly shallows.
Soared skyward the great sun, that hallows
The pagan shrines of labour and light
As the moon consecrates the night.
Labour is corn and love is wine,
And both are blesséd in the shrine;
Nor is he for priest designed
Who partakes only in one kind.
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