Collected Works (Vol. I)

180 THE TEMPLE OF THE HOLY GHOST Not altogether: in my patchwork brain Some rag of passion tears its woof asunder. Strange, that its own insatiable pain Should find an opiate in her eyes of wonder ! Yes, though I hate her well enough to kill, I know that then my soul would love her still. THE SONNET. I, THE solemn hour, and the magnetic swoon Of midnight in a poet’s lonely hall ! Grave spirits answer (angels if he call) The invocations of his lofty tune. Thus in his measures nature craves the boon To be reflected ; and his rhymes appal Or charm mankind as tides that flow or fall, Waxes or wanes the tempestival moon. Her course is tether. Waxes the eightfold ecstasy ; exceeds The minor sestet, where some passion bleeds Or truth discourses: or eclipse may end, Proof against thought ; but if man com- prehend The stars in all their stations sing together. measured in the sonnet’s Il. What power or fascination can there lie In this fair garden of the straight-kept rows, sonnet ? knows Why, having written in mere ecstasy One sonnet-thought, the metre cannot dic But urges, but compels me to compose More and still more,! and still my spirit The Surely some archange] FCS Striving up glittering steeps of symphony. 1 This is a singular psychological fact. There is an angel who is guardian. Surely her wings are rosy, and her feet Black as the wind of frost ; but oh! her face ! Whoso may know it is no more a man, But walks with God, and sees the Lady sweet Whose body was the vehicle of yrace. WEDLOCK. A SONNET. I saw the Russian peasants 1! build a ring Of glowing embers of the bubbling pine. In the green heart o’ the salamander line They scatter roses. Now the youngsters spring Within, who with hard-shut eyes hope to bring Irom out the fiery circle one divine Blossom of rose, as from a poisonous mine Gold comes to gird the palace of a king. Envious I sprang—and found the last rose gone. ) So in the fiery ring of wedlock, blind, Mad, one may leap, no rose perhaps to find (Or, if no rose, good fortune finds no thorn), But—mark the difference—palpable and plain : Kose or no rose, one leaps not out again. SONNET FOR GERALD KELLY'’S DRAWING OF JEZEBEL. irr up thine head, disastrous Jezebel ! Fire and black stars are melted in thine hair That curls to Hell, as in Satanic prayer; Thy mouth is heavy with its riper smell Than clustered pomegranates beside a well ; The cruel savour of thy lust lies there, That blood may tinge thy kisses unaware To fill thy children with the hope of Fell. 1 In my mind’s eve, Horatio. The story. iS a pretty fiction.