The Equinox (Volume I, Number IX)

THE EQUINOX So shall the lust of love be sated on thee In spite of thee, who knowest no ecstasy. And I will win a pallid way to the stars In spite of thee! Yea, and because of thee. For the end of every path must be the same, And at the end of thee, immortal one, Is Nothing! Yea, thou shalt know, Rose, even as I, How the last dust of the world is naught but dust, And how thou shalt die, being the Immortal Rose. x LIFE MEN say: “ For love's sake and for beauty’s sake We would make our songs immortal; we would give The passionate cry of summer, the secret ache That thou, our poet, knowest ;” I would live A lonely virgin for thy sake, and I Would fret no more the earth, nor tire the sky With ever-unbidden song. Ah! I would give All that my spirit hath learned of thee, to live Lonely and pure with the memory of thy kiss, And thy passionate, tearing lips, and thine arms around me, Knowing naught of the world, and caring naught, save this: Love, through this woman, hath found me. . . .