ROSA IGNOTA
Whose yoke we must bear? And wilt thou break the spell >
But now the murmur comes to me again,
Insistent as the rain upon the thatch,
And the cry of the lonely wind at the blurring pane :
I bear the red-tipped lilies under the moon
For ever! the red-tipped lilies under the moon |
And now there is no cry to stir the dark,
And the day is faded; there is no more light.
There is no more light, but through the dusky air
The wind-harps play, the strings respond to the winds,
As the droning oceans call to the listening skies;
The hills stand dark and deep in steadfast gloom ;
Twilight is slain by the old black, wandering god.
Summer is buried. There is no more light.
But in the breast of the world there stirs again
The flaming heart that is my Rose, my Rose,
My secret Rose, whom but to name, to name,
Is a sacrament upon the altar of Fire:
Oh! yellow Fire! Oh! aureate-petalled Rose!
Because swift Sorrow hath stricken me, I sing
Here in the wavering gloom, the sunless deep,
Calling slow dreams from their immortal sleep ;
Wakening the murmuring sigh, the spirit’s spring—
The bitter pangs of the birth of everything,
Immortal Matter and the wandering Soul.
And they have sought to slay me in the night,
Because I am blind, and hear not the dark wings;
Because I am a prisoner in the flesh;
Because I am mortal, O immortal Rose!
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