THE VIRTUE OF PRIDE

My troubled bosom shall be cinct with pride, Girdled with red asterias. Is it sin If I have cast lover and friend aside, Scorning them as myself who cannot win The strengths of beauty, the heavenly altitudes?—  O sad and sacred Spirit of Disdain, What penances upon thine ivory roods Within the burning Castles of thy pain!— Thy mystic will no motion ever knew Outwith the splendid danger of extremes; Thy sorrowful refusals pass thee through The great concentrics of star-builded dreams, Unto the crypt of absolute ecstasy, To God or Nothing—where thine heart would be.

 

 

 

 

XLII

SPELL-BOUND

I have been frozen. Once I was not cold. But I have strayed within some glittering Night Of Lapland miracle, have leagued of old With glaives and banners of wild Polar light. Yet if I could dissolve in tears this core Of ice, my heart, undo these crystal spells, We should be sisters of incense evermore Like the crowned Lover of the Canticles. Through the great honeycomb of my soul should steep The secrets of the lilies, and her fire Be ambergris, her agate flagons keep The sorcelled hydromel which brings Desire To that mysterious Dark where still prevails The dream of roses and of nightingales.

 

 

 

 

XLIII

THE NIGHT OBSCURE OF THE SOUL

 Prev. P 23/33 next