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…y and night apart, Know not where frost has laid his iron hand, Save only that it fastens on my heart ; Save only that it grips with icy fire These veins no fire of hell could satiate ; Save only that it quenches this desire. Let me pass out beyond the city gate. 8
Behold, I stand above His head With feet made white with whitest fire, Above His forehead, that is red As blood with His Desire. I knew that Voice was more than God, And echo trembled for its trust : Sleep’s feet, like Death’s, with fire are shod, And Love is likest Lust. So I returned and sought her breast, Our Lady of ten thousand Pains ; I drank her kisses, and possessed Her pale maternal veins. I said : Drain hard my sudden breath, Be cruel for the vampire thrust ! Let Sleep’s desire be sweet as Death, And Love be clean as Lust ! I died ami…
There steals through my coldness a fire, Between my slow words is a sword, One lit by the heart of desire, One sharp in the hand of the lord ; To these that sink, sleep, and expire, your welcome accord. With winds and white seas for your raiment Your stature immutably stands : My love, with no claim, as a claimant Came seeking out truth in the sands, Found truth, and must place in poor payment this book in your hands. 109
…, A flower of flame Whose root most secretly made fast in hell Is watered by the seraphim that fell. The heart wherein is lit the sacred fire Of high desire, Burnt clean from all untruth and sacrilege, Her wings may fledge, And fly a little in the broad sweet air, Till unaware 102
…rize. My hands no longer write : Communion with the night Is built, a bride of fiery truth across the subtle mind. God’s angels, and His fire, Consume the soul’s desire, And strike a lighter lyre. I seek ; the angels lead me on, all light and truth to find. 66
…pon my lips What lips of flame To burn me, unless slips Some cooler kiss, from shame Washed clean by God’s desire, To save me from their fire— Those kiss me and respire The perfume of the Name. Remorse and terror banished By pitying lovers, Who from my eyes have vanished, (The Lidless Eye discovers), Repenting souls that turn, Whose hearts with pity burn For me, who now discern Their love around me hovers. Their love wards from my head The furious hate Of those loves doubly dead That may not pass the gate : 84
…en to proclaim aloud The year acceptable before the Lord. Therefore He fills my voice with silvery sound, And by His spirit, a pillar of fire and cloud, My eyes are lightning, and my tongue a sword. 72
… wonderful a light As when on Galilee Jesus once walked, and clove the night And calmed the sea. I scarce could see his features for the fire That dwelt about his brow, Yet, for the whiteness of my own desire, I see him now ; Because my footsteps follow his, and tread The awful bounds of heaven, and make 88
I saw the Christ, with fire shod, Walk through the holy place, And the lilies rosier where he trod, Blushed for a little space. I saw myself, and still I sang With lips in clearer tune, Like to the nightingale’s that rang Through all those nights of June ; Such nights when stars in slumber hang Beneath the quiet moon. Still, in those avenues of light, No maid, with golden zone, And lily garment that from sight Half hides the ivory throne, Lay in my arms the livelong night To call my soul her own. The Christ’s cold lips my lips did taste On Time…
… its fancies weave— Fancies of starlight on the lucent sea Gleaming from wide horizon to the feet Of Cynthia’s bow, all silver-shot with fire, That virgin flame that lingers evermore 32
…lay ; O Christ ! whose eyes have always been Fixed fast upon the way, Where dim Jerusalem was seen A city cold and grey ! The flowers of fire that grow beneath, And blossom on the Tree Are fed from his despair and death Who sings of land and sea, And all those mountains where thy breath, Jehovah, still must be. 96
That is not seeing, but the light That secretly is kindled, Though oft time its most holy fire Lacks oil, whene’er my own Desire Before desire has dwindled. I see the thin web binding me With thirteen cords of unity Toward the calm centre of the sea. (O thou supernal mother !) The triple light my path divides To twain and fifty sudden sides Each perfect as each other. Now backwards, inwards still my mind Must track the intangible and blind, And seeking, shall securely find Hidden in secret places Fresh feasts for every soul that strives, New li…
…e Is made most holy, beautiful, and pure, By this desire, if this desire endure. So to the altar of the Highest aspire Those souls whose fire Has on it cast one grain of pure incense, (Who guesses—whence ?) Those souls that cast their trammels off, and spring On eager wing, 103
…t. A vision of it came to me In night’s most ghastly hours. I who desire, beyond all named desire, To pass the envious bounds of air and fire, And penetrate the bosom of the night, Saw in a vision such a neophyte Stand on the forehead of the rock ; I saw The armies of unalterable law Shudder within their spheres, as to him came His master’s spirit, like a tongue of flame, To touch his lips and ears and eyes and hands With that pale amber that divides the lands Of sense and spirit, and beheld him quail 67
…LLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. I THINK the souls of many men are here Among these cloisters, underneath the spire That the moon silvers with magnetic fire ; But not a moon-ray is it, that so clear Shines on the pavement, for a voice of fear It hath, unless it be the breeze that mocks My ear, and waves his old majestic locks About his head. There fell upon my ear : “ O soul contemplative of distant things, Who hast a poet’s heart, even if thy pen Be dry and barren, who dost hold Love dear, Speed forth this message on the fiery wings Of stinging song to all t…
…e poor dreams of us Who strive mysterious To pierce the bands of sense, and break the girth Of our own minds’ desire, Till He relume the fire Lost at our fall, not kindled fresh till that diviner birth. 58
Of lust, the cruel torment of desire More than hell fire, And bid them fade, as if the bryony Let her flower die, And banished them through space, as if a star Dropped through the far Vault of the sky, and, as a lamp extinct With blood-red tinct, Went out. So lonely in mysterious night A wild, strange light Flickers around the sacred head of man, And bids him scan The scroll of heaven, and see if there be not, Black with no blot Of cloud, but golden lettered on the blue That mothers dew, This message of good hope, good trust, good fate And good…
…he tameless thunder follows hard behind, Fast, and too fast. The lightning heralds us, the iron blast Lends us its splendour for a steed fire-shod, The steed of God ! 68
…ousand Pains With heavy kissing breath. I said : Our Lady is as God, Her hell of pain as heaven above ; Death’s feet, like Sleep’s, with fire are shod, And Lust is likest Love. Our Lady crushed me in her bed, Between her breasts my life was wet ; My lips from that sweet death were fed ; I died, and would forget. 22
…ht black and blind, Strange chants, the murmurs of the mind, To grasp the hands of heaven and find the lords of light. Mine was the holy fire that drew Its perfect passion from the dew, And all the flowers that blushed and blew On sunny slopes by little brooks. Mine the desire that brushed aside The thorns, and would not be denied, And sought, more eager than a bride, The cold grey secrets wan and wide of sacred books. Thine was the hand that guided me By moor and mountain, vale and lea, And led me to the sudden sea That lies superb, remote, an…