Orpheus

The very limits of the law That hath no bounds: beheld the bliss Of that first wonder of the kiss In its true self: how very love Is God, and hath its substance of Pure light: and how love hath its cause Beyond religions, worlds, and laws ; Is in itself the first: and moves All evolution, and disproves God in affirming God: all this In that one rapture of the kiss I knew, and all creation’s pain Fell into nothing in my brain, As I, remaining man, involved All life’s true purpose, and dissolved The phantoms (of itself create) In a mysterious sweet state, Wherein some tune began to move Whose likeness and whose life was love. Roll, strong life-current of these very veins, Into my lover’s soul, my soul that is! Thrill, mighty life of nerves, exultant strains Triumphant of all music in a kiss ! Fade! fade! O strenuous sense Into the soul intense Of life beyond your weak imagining! And, O thou thought, dissever Thy airy life for ever 149