48 
AMBERGRIS 
Yea, mine own voice :  the higher spirit speaks, 
Stemming the hands that guide, the arms that hold, 
Even the infinite brain :  that spirit seeks 
A loftier down of more ephemeral gold— 
Ephemeral, and eternal.  Droop thine head, 
O God !  for thou must suffer this, I said. 
 
Droop thy wide pinions, O thou mortal God ! 
Sink thy vast forehead, and let Life consume 
The miserable life thy feet have trod 
Beneath them, that thine own life in its doom 
Fall, in its resurrection to arise ; 
Stoop, that its holier hope may cleave the skies. 
 
Power, power, and power !  O single sacrifice 
On thine own altar :  let thy savour steam 
Up, through the domes of broken Paradise ; 
Up, by Euphrates unimagined stream ; 
Up, by strange river and mysterious lawn 
To some impossible diadem of dawn ! 
 
So the more orderly ruling of events 
Shall change and blossom to a finer flower, 
Until it serve to worlds and elements 
For aspiration in the nobler hour— 
No mere repression, but the hope and crown 
Of fallen hierarchies no more cast down. 
 
O misery of triple love and grief 
And hope !  O joy of hatred and despair 
And happiness !  The little hour is brief, 
And the lithe fingers soothe the listless hair 
Less, and the kisses swoon to tenderer signs 
And little sobs of sleeping ecstasies. 
 
No !  for the envy of the infinite 
Crushes the juice from out the poppy’s stem, 
And brown-stained fingers wring the petals white, 
And weary lips seek lotus-life in them