Jephthah and Other Mysteries

360 JEPHTHAH. And through waters that foamed and that wondered There flashes the heart of a rose ; For its petals are beauty and passion, For its stem the foundation of earth, For bloom the incarnadine fashion Of blessings that roar into birth ; And the gates that roll back on their hinges The soul of the sage may discern, Till the water with crimson that tinges Beyond them miraculous burn ; And the presence of God to the senses Is the passion of God in the mind, As the string of a harp that intenses The note that its fire may not find. For here in the tumult and labour And blindness of cowering man, _ The spirit has God for a neighbour, And the wheels unreturning that ran Return to the heart of the roses, And curl in the new blossom now, As the holiest fire that encloses Gray flame on the holiest brow. So midnight with magic reposes, And slumbers to visions bow. For the soul of man, being free, shall pass the gates of God, And the spirit find the Sea by the feet of Him untrod, | And the flesh, a lifeless ember, in ashen fear grow cold,