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MYSTERIES :
Now Heaven and Hell reject him,
And Earth refuses home;
He knows not to direct him
To Lesbos or to Rome.
His life he sees unhidden,
A sea of waves unchidden,
Devouring things forbidden
In sacramental foam.
Here come “the loves that wither,”
And here their heaviest wings
Droop, and “dead years draw hither
And all disastrous things.”
Pure loves that flowered never,
True loves that none might sever,
The flame that burns for ever,
Love's ruined water-springs.
Oh, Death! draw nigh, deliver
My passion from its band ;
Draw nigh, until I shiver
At thy most holy hand.
For Earth’s desires have fled me,
And Earth’s distrusts have fed me,
And Love has come, and shed me
As water upon sand.