Iam: that darkness strange and uterine
Is shot with dawn and scented with the rose ;
The deep dim prison-house of corn and wine,
Flowers, children, stars, with flame far subtler glows
Formless, all-piercing, death-defying, divine,
A sweet frail lamp whose shadow gleams and shows
No darkness, is as light is where its rays
Cross, interweave, and marry with the day’s!
I am: the heart that flames from central Me
Seeks out all life, and takes again, to mingle
Its passion with my might and majesty,
Till the vast floods of the man’s being tingle
And glow, self-lost within my soul and sea
Of love, and sun of utter light, and single
Keen many-veinéd heart: our lips and kisses
Marry and muse on our immortal blisses.
Iam: the greatest and the least : the sole
And separate life of things. The mighty stresses
Of worlds are my nerves twitching. Branch and bole
Of forests waving in deep wildernesses
Are hairs upon my body. Rivers roll
To make one tear in my superb caresses,
When on myself myself begets a child,
A system of a thousand planets piled!
Iam: the least, the greatest: the frail life
Of some small coral-insect still may tremble
With love for me, and call me queen and wife;
The shy plant of the water may dissemble
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