A PAEAN IN THE SPRINGTIDE 
75 
Heaven is bare and bleak, hell has the joys beyond 
Heaven, 
Fire and desire and delight, of a love that is always 
young ; 
Hell has the pains of hell, but the sweetest of lusts for 
leaven. 
Fierce body, breasts of delight, fearful and murderous 
tongue. 
 
Hell is the house of all delight, 
Heaven the home of a bitter blight ; 
Pain is our joy and our spirits’ power, 
Never shall fade its fiery flower. 
 
Now is the triumph of Love, gazing far to an infinite 
pleasure, 
Pleasure that mocks Heaven’s hopes, that our hands are 
impatient to hold. 
Love and delight pouring out, in a fearless insatiate 
measure, 
Out of the chalice of lust, scarlet o’errunning its gold. 
This is the song of the Spring, that the nightingales 
carol by starlight,  
This the delight of our eyes, as they shine with strange 
fire 
in 
the 
night,