The rose flames out in the flood ;  and all at once, 
A brilliance disembodied, 
I am shattered like the dew upon your leaves ; 
So that the lampless hour 
Strikes, and an unborn universe perceives 
Its lonely mother-flower, 
Us, in our love’s arcane Briatic bower. 
We scatter light, a music-tingling shower ; 
We breathe out life, a crimson whisper ; 
We radiate love, a velvet-soft complaint, 
Most like the echo of a chime at vesper 
Rung far across narcissus-haunted leas, 
Lilied lagoons, and moon-enchaunted seas, 
By the high-bosomed boy, large-eyed, with fasting faint, 
That shares an hermitage with some devoutest saint. 
 
III 
 
S, in our life, I passed the awful gate 
  Where like a Cerberus sate 
The triform silence, Fate, 
And bade the red blood bloom 
Within that Palace of untasted gloom ; 
As, in our life, confronting the black forms— 
Colossal ghosts, like storms !— 
I did abide in the most holy hall 
And let the dread word fall, 
Nor bade the red axe falter 
4
A