10
THE EQUINOX
O moon! ambrosial moon!
Arise on my desert of sorrow
That the magical eyes of me swoon
With lust of rain to-morrow!
Ages and ages ago
I stood on the bank of a river
Holy and holy and holy, I know,
For ever and ever and ever!
A priest in the mystical shrine,
I muttered a redeless rune,
Till the waters were redder than wine
In the blush of the harlot moon.
I and my brother priests
Worshipped a wonderful woman
With a body lithe as a beast’s,
Subtly, horribly human.
Deep in the pit of her eyes
I saw the image of death,
And I drew the water of sighs
From the well of her lullaby breath.
She sitteth veiled for ever
Brooding over the waste.
She hath stirred or spoken never.
She is fiercely, manly chaste!
What madness made me awake
From the silence of utmost eld
The grey cold slime of the snake
That her poisonous body held?