34 
AMBERGRIS 
The lotus is afire for love, 
Its yearnings are immortal still ; 
But in its bosom, fed thereof, 
Lust, like a child will have his will. 
Immortal fervour, strangely blent 
With mystic sensual sacrament, 
Fills up its cup, its petals tremble 
With faint desires that dissemble 
The fierce intention to be wed 
One with the spring sun’s head. 
 
The fountains of the river yearn 
Toward the sacred temple-walls, 
They foam upon the sands that burn 
With spring’s delirious festivals. 
They flash upon the gleaming ways, 
They cry, they chant aloud the praise 
Of Isis, and our temple kisses 
Their flowery water-wildernesses, 
Whose foamheads nestle to the stones 
With slumberous antiphones. 
 
All birds and beasts and fish are fain 
To mingle passion with the hope 
All creatures hold, that cycled pain 
May make its stream the wider scope 
Of many lives and changing law, 
Till to the sacred fountains draw 
Essences of dim being, mated 
With lofty substance uncreated, 
Concluding the full period 
That makes all being God.