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,