96 
AMBERGRIS 
Mere slave to me, not Lord—thy fieriest flight 
And stateliest shaft of light 
Thyself thyself surpassing ;  all were dull, 
And thou, O rose, sole, sacred, wonderful, 
Single in love and aim, 
Double in form and name, 
Triple in energy of radiant flame, 
Informing all, in all most beautiful, 
Circle and sphere, perfect in every part 
High above hope of Art : 
Though, be it said !  thou art nowhere now, 
Save in the secret chamber of my heart, 
Behind the brass of my anonymous brow. 
 
12.  Ay !  let the coward and slave who writes write on ! 
He is no more harm to Love than the grey snake 
Who lurks in the dusk brake 
For the bare-legged village-boy, is to the Sun, 
The Sire of Life. 
The Lover and the Wife, 
Immune, intact, ignore.  The people hear ; 
Then, be the people smitten of grey Fear, 
It is no odds ! 
 
13.  I have seen the eternal Gods 
Sit, star-wed, in old Egypt by the Nile ; 
The same calm pose, the inscrutable, wan smile 
On every lip alike. 
Time hath not had his will to strike 
At them ;  they abide, they pass through all. 
Though their most ancient names may fall, 
They stir not nor are weary of 
Life, for with them even as with us, Life is but Love. 
They know, we know ;  let, then, the writing go ! 
That, in the very deed, we do not know. 
 
14.  It may be in the centuries of our life 
Since we were man and wife 
There stirs some incarnation of that love.