THE EQUINOX
So shall the lust of love be sated on thee
In spite of thee, who knowest no ecstasy.
And I will win a pallid way to the stars
In spite of thee! Yea, and because of thee.
For the end of every path must be the same,
And at the end of thee, immortal one,
Is Nothing! Yea, thou shalt know, Rose, even
as I,
How the last dust of the world is naught but dust,
And how thou shalt die, being the Immortal Rose.
x
LIFE
MEN say: “ For love's sake and for beauty’s sake
We would make our songs immortal; we would
give
The passionate cry of summer, the secret ache
That thou, our poet, knowest ;” I would live
A lonely virgin for thy sake, and I
Would fret no more the earth, nor tire the sky
With ever-unbidden song. Ah! I would give
All that my spirit hath learned of thee, to live
Lonely and pure with the memory of thy kiss,
And thy passionate, tearing lips, and thine arms around
me,
Knowing naught of the world, and caring naught, save
this:
Love, through this woman, hath found me. . . .