Collected Works (Vol. III)

ROSA MUNDI AND OTHER LOVE-SONGS 1905 I. Rose of the World ! Red vlory ot the secret heart of Love : Red flame, rose-red, most subily curled Into its own infinite flower, all flowers above ! Its flower in its own perfumed passion, Its faint sweet passion, folded and furled In flower fashion ; And my deep spirit taking its pure part Of that voluptuous heart Of hidden happiness ! 2. Arise, strong bow of the young child Eros ! (While the maddening moonlight, the memoried caress Stolen of the scented rose Stirs me and bids each racing pulse ache, ache !) Bend into an agony of art Whose cry is ever rapture, and whose tears For their own purity’s undivided sake Are molten dew, as, on the lotus leaves Silver-coiled in the Sun Into green-girdled spheres Purer than all a maiden’s dream enweaves, Lies the unutterable beauty of The Waters. Yea, arise, divinest dove Of the Idalian, on your crimson wings And soft grey plumes, bear me to yon cool shrine Of that most softly-spoken one, Mine Aphrodite! Touch the strings, Oh thou, immortal, throned above the moon! Inspire a holy tune Lichter and lovelier than flowers and wine Offered in gracious gardens unto Pan By any soul of man |! imperfect St 3. In vain the solemn stars pour their pale dews Upon my trembling spirit; their caress Leaves me moon-rapt in waves of loveliness All thine, O rose, O wrought of many a muse In Music, O thou strength of ecstasy Incarnate in a woman-form, create Of her own rapture, infinite, ultimate, Not to be seen, not grasped, not even imagi- nable,. But known of one, by virtue of that spell Of thy sweet will toward him: thou, unknown, Untouched, grave mistress of the sunlight throne Of thine own nature ; known not even of me, But of some spark of woven eternity Immortal in this bosom. Phosphor paled And in the grey upstarted the dread veiled Rose light of dawn. Sun-shapen shone thy spears Of love forth darting into myriad spheres, Which I the poet called this light, that flower, This knowledge, that illumination, power This and love that, in vain, in vain, until Thy beauty dawned, all beauty to distil Into one drop of utmost dew, one name Choral as floral, one thin, subtle flame Fitted to a shaft of love, to pierce, to endue My trance-rapt spirit with the avenue Of perfect pleasures, radiating far . Up and up yet to where thy sacred star Burned in its brilliance : thence the storm was shed A passion of great calm about this head, This head no more a poet’s ; since the dreara Of beauty gathered close into a stream