THE LESBIAN HELL gt
Their sighs attract the unsubstantial shapes
Of other women, and their kisses burn
Cold on the lips whose purple blood escapes,
A thin chill stream ; they feel not nor discern,
Nor love's low laugh return.
They kiss the spiritual dead, they pass
Like mists uprisen from the frosty moon,
Like shadows fleeting in a seer’s glass,
Beckoning, yearning, amorous of the noon
When earth dreams on in swoon.
They are so sick for sorrow, that my eyes
Are moist because their passion was so fair,
So pure and comely that no sacrifice
Seems to waft up a sweeter savour there,
Where God’s grave ear takes prayer.
O desecrated lovers! O divine
Passionate martyrs, virgin unto death!
O kissing daughters of the unfed brine!
O sisters of the west wind’s pitiful breath,
There is One that pitieth!
One far above the heavens crowned alone,
Immitigable, intangible, a maid,
Incomprehensible, divine, unknown,
Who loves your love, and to high God hath
said:
‘To me these songs are made!”