aflame, Love, Love more lovely, like a triumpher, Shall break his malefactor's sepulchre.

 

 

 

 

XI

THE PASSION-FLOWER

The passion-flower bears in her violet Cup The senses of her bridal, and they seem Symbols of sacred pangs,—Love lifted up To expiate the beauty of his dream. Come and adore, ye crafty imagers, This piece of ivory and amethyst. Let Music, Colour, decorated Verse, Meditate, each like some sad lutanist, This Paten, and the marvels it uncovers, Identities of joy and anguish. Rod, Nails, bitter garlands, all ecstatic lovers Blindly repeat the dolours of a God. Subdue this mournful matter unto Art, Ivory, amethyst, serene of heart.

 

 

 

 

XII

THE VOICE OF LOVE

I

"Mine, mine!" saith Love, "Deny me many times. Yet mine that body wherein mine arrow thrills, And mine the fugitive soul that bleeding climbs Hunting a vision on the frozen hills. Mine are her stigmata, sad rhapsodist.—  And when to the delighted bridal-bowers They bring thee starlike through the silver mist Of music and canticles and myrtle-flowers, And the dark hour bids the consentless heart Surrender to disillusion, since in all The labyrinth of deed no counterpart Can pattern Passion's archetype, nor shall The chalice of sense endure her flaming wine, Superb and 

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