Draw into nought
All life,
death,
hatred, love :
All self concentred in the sole desire—
Hear thou the Voice of Fire
!
This hope was Zoroaster's —this is mine !
Not one but many splendours hath the Shrine
:
Not one but many paths approach the gate
That guards the Adytum,
fortifying
Fate
!
Mine was, by weariness of blood and brain,
Mere bitter fruit of pain
Sought
in the darkness of an harlot's bed,
To make me as one dead
:
To loose
the girders of the soul, and gain
Breathing
and life for the Intelligible
;
Find death,
yet find
it living.
Deep as Hell
I plunged the soul ; by all blind Heaven
unbound
The spirit, freed, pierced through
the maze profound,
And knew Itself, an eagle for a dove.
So in one man the height and deep of love
Joined,
in two states alternate (even so
Are life and death)—shall one unite the two,
My long impulsive strife ?
Did I find life ?
The real life—to know
The ways of God.
Alas ! I never knew.
Q
121