The Winged Beetle

TELEPATHY 69 Our eyes were sunk in black eclipse To rise in glittering trances : Our belly-muscles tight as whips By dint of Arab dances ! Yea ; all our love is glittering steel Sharpened on torture’s aching wheel. My Dorothy ! my Dorothy ! Our mouths were wried and bleeding. Love’s eucharistic mystery ! Their suckling lips were feeding At the black breasts of ecstasy, Of ecstasy exceeding ! Yea ; at the paps of Isis we Drained starry milk of ecstasy. O thou close-fitted to my soul, Close-fitted to my skin, Moving as one delicious whole Without us and within ! How have we lost the iron control That curbed and spurred our sin ? Yea ; like one snake’s death-spasm we were. How taken in the serpent-snare? Indeed, indeed, blind fools we passed From light and light’s dominion