Rosa Mundi

— 3 — But of some spark of woven eternity Immortal in this bosom. Phosphor paled And in the grey upstarted the dread veiled Rose light of dawn. Sunshapen shone thy spears Of love forth darting into myriad spheres, Which I the poet called this light, that flower, This knowledge, that illumination, power This and love that, in vain, in vain, until Thy beauty dawned, all beauty to distil Into one drop of utmost dew, one name Choral as floral, one thin, subtle flame Fitted to a shaft of love. O bear me far Up and up yet to where thy sacred star Burns in its brilliance ! Thence the storm be shed A passion of great calm about this head, This head no more a poet’s . Ay ! the dream Of beauty gathered close into a stream Of tingling light, and, gathering ever force From thine own love, its unextended source, Became the magic utterance that makes Me, Dissolving self into the starless sea That makes one lake of molten joy, one pond Steady as light and hard as diamond ; One drop, one atom of constraint intense, Of elemental passion scorning sense, All the concentred music that is I. O ! hear me not ! I die ; I am borne away in misery of dumb life