ROSA COELI 
3 
 
Upon the sepulchres, the dizzy seas 
Of this my mind, Sabbatic rout that spanned 
These straits my soul !  Ay, they are dead and drowned 
(And damned, I doubt !) Ah God !  I am exhaust 
In the red moon’s holocaust !   
God !  God !  The chasms secret and profound 
Suck down the porphyry flood 
Of your maniacal, ensorcelled blood 
That maddens and bewitches. 
My life is suffocated—now I swoon— 
I die !  I am in hell, red hell, red hell, 
Circles me closer ;  all the soul’s afire 
As if the boreal moon 
With all the icy Lapland hags 
That shiver on ‘s hibernal crags 
Were but a thin white shell 
Hoarding the seed of many a million suns, 
Giving its life up unto its desire— 
Out bursts the womb of my unguessed-at godhead ;   
The rose flames out in the flood ;  and all at once, 
A brilliance disembodied, 
I am shattered like the dew upon your leaves ;   
So that the lampless hour 
Strikes, and an unborn universe perceives 
Its lonely mother-flower, 
Us, in our love’s arcane Briatic bower. 
We scatter light, a music-tingling shower ;   
We breathe out life, a crimson whisper ;