14 
ROSA COELI 
 
 
XIV 
Give me thine hand, 
Rose of the Stars, and we will soar above 
Wisdom and Strength and Love, 
Into the sphere where all delight retires 
In azure flames and silver-edgéd fires. 
Now through the veil we shoot 
Like snaky lightning through a thundercloud 
Up to the awful precipice-skirted place 
Where deaf, blind, palsied, mute 
There sits the leprous God ;  we laugh aloud 
Seeing him face to face, 
Blowing him like a shaken sheaf of snow 
With a brief gust of wind 
Over the cliffs of his ensanguine throne ;   
Seating ourselves thereon, as men shall know, 
Above soul, spirit, heart, thought, being, mind, 
All—but most irrevocably entwined  
And irrevocably alone. 
 
XV 
There was a boy with O !  the face of dawn,  
The mother-of-pearl that shimmered on his skin. 
The breasts like golden roses circling red, 
The limbs like limbs of a young fawn 
For litheness—O !  for innocence of sin 
His eyes burned wondrous bright, his sun-crowned head 
Danced with its sweet and sacred hopes,  
So that he paced the enamelled slopes