Ambergris

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