Ambergris

AMBERGRIS 9 FROM SONGS OF THE SPIRIT Astrology A lonely spirit seeks the midnight hour, When souls have power To cast away one moment bonds of clay, And touch the day With pallid, wistful lips beyond the earth, And bring to birth New thoughts with which life long has travailed ; As if one dead Should rise and utter secrets of the tomb, And from hell’s womb Or heaven’s breast bring all the load of fears, Toils of long years, Sorrows of life and agonies of death, Hard caught-up breath, The labouring hands of love, the cheeks of shame, The gloomy flame Of lust, the cruel torment of desire More than hell fire, And bid them fade, as if the bryony Let her flower die, And banished them through space, as if a star Dropped through the far Vault of the sky, and, as a lamp extinct With blood-red tinct, Went out. So lonely in mysterious night A wild, strange light Flickers around the sacred head of man, And bids him scan The scroll of heaven, and see if there be not, Black with no blot Of cloud, but golden lettered on the blue That mothers dew,