XXI

SOUL AND BODY

It may be all my pain is woven wrong, And this wild "I" is nothing but a dream The body exhales, as roses at evensong Their passionate odour. Verily it may seem That this most fevered and fantastic wear Of nerves and senses is myself indeed, The rest, illusion taken in that snare.—  But still the fiery splendour and the need Can bite like actual flame and hunger. Ah! If Sense, bewildered in the spiral towers Of Matter, dreamed this great Superbia I call the Soul, not less the Dream hath powers; Not less these Twain, being one, are separate, Like lovers whose love is tangled hard with hate.

 

 

 

 

XXII

SOUL AND BODY

II

Sometimes the Soul in pure hieratic rule Is throned (as on some high Abbatial chair Of moon-pearl and rose-rubies beautiful)  Within the body grown serene and fair: Sometimes it weds her like a lifted rood; But she endures, and wills no anodyne, For then she flowers within the mystic Wood, And hath her lot with gods—and seems divine: Sometimes it is her lonely oubliet, Sometimes a marriage-chamber sweet with spice: It is her triumph-car with flutes beset, The altar where she lies a sacrifice.— Cold images! The truth is not in these. Both are alive, both quick with rhapsodies.

 

 

 

 

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