98 
AMBERGRIS 
Pearl, moonlight, mother-milk 
That is her skin ; 
Its swift caress 
Flits like an angel’s kiss in a dream ;  remains 
The healing virtue ;  from all sin, 
All ill, one touch sets free. 
My life is like a star—oh fool !  oh fool ! 
Is not thy back yet tender from the rod ? 
Is there no learning in the poet’s school ? 
Wilt thou achieve what were too hard for God ? 
I call Him to the battle ;  ask of me 
When the hinds calve ?  What of eternity 
When he built chaos ? Shall Leviathan 
Be drawn out with an hook ?  Enough ;  I see 
This I can answer—or Ernst Haeckel can ! 
Now, God Almighty, rede this mystery ! 
What of the love that is the heart of man ? 
Take stars and airs, and write it down ! 
Fill all the interstices of space 
With myriad verse—own Thy disgrace ! 
Diminish Thy renown ! 
Approve my riddle !  This Thou canst not do. 
 
17.  O living Rose !  O dowered with subtle dew 
Of love, the tiny eternities of time, 
Caught between flying seconds, are well filled 
With these futilities of fragrant rime ; 
In Love’s retort distilled, 
In sunrays of fierce loathing purified, 
In moonrays of pure longing tried, 
And gathered after many moons of labour 
Into the compass of a single day, 
And wrought into continuous tune, 
One laughter with one languor for its neighbour, 
One thought of winter with one word of June, 
Muddled and mixed in mere dismay, 
Chiselled with the cunning chisel fo despair, 
Found wanting, well aware 
Of its own fault, even insistent