THE EARTH
THE child of miracle to the world, greeting.
I reach my hands to the leaves and dabble in the dew: I
sprinkle dew on you for kisses.
I kneel down and hold the
grass of the black earth to my bosom; I crush the earth to
my lips as if it were a grape.
And the wine of Demeter
flushes my cheeks; they burn with joy of youth
Why should I greet the world?
Because my heart is
bursting with love for the world.
Love, say 1?
Why not
lust?
Is not lust strength, and merriment, and the famine
that only the infinite can stay?
And why do I call myself the child of miracle?
Because
I have entered a second time into my mother’s womb and am
born.
Because to the knowledge of manhood has come the
passion, even the folly, of adolescence ; with all its pride and
purity.
It is for this that you see me lying upon the thick wet
grass, unquenchable; or rejoicing in the fat black loam.
Now the manner of the miracle was this.
In the beginning
is given to a youth the vision of his mate.
This one must he
henceforth seek blindly; and many are the enchantments and
disenchantments.
Through this his vision fades; even his
hunger dies away unless he be indeed Elect.
But in the end
it may be that God shall send him the other half of that Token
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