THE FEAST OF AGE 

 See where the light streams over Connla's fountain Starward aspire! The sacred sign upon the holy mountain Shines in white fire: Wavering and flaming yonder o'er the snows The diamond light Melts into silver or to sapphire glows, Night beyond night: And from the Heaven of Heaven descends on earth A dew divine. Come, let us mingle in the starry mirth Around the shrine. O Earth, Enchantress, Mother, to our home In thee we press, Thrilled by thy fiery breath and wrapt in some Vast tenderness. The homeward birds, uncertain o'er their nest Wheel in the dome, Fraught with dim dreams of more enraptured rest, Another home. But gather ye, to whose undarkened eyes Night is as day, Leap forth, immortals, Birds of Paradise, In bright array, Robed like the shining tresses of the sun, And by his name Call from his haunt divine, the ancient one Our Father Flame. Aye, from the wonder light, heart of our star, Come now, come now. Sun-breathing spirit, ray thy lights afar: Thy children bow, Hush with more awe the heart; the bright-browed races Are nothing worth, By those dread gods from out whose awful faces The earth looks forth Infinite pity set in calm, whose vision cast Adown the years Beholds how beauty burns away at last Their children's tears. Now while our hearts the ancient quietness Floods with its tide, The things of air and fire and height no less In it abide; And from their wanderings over sea and shore They rise as one Unto the vastness, and with us adore The midnight sun, And enter the innumerable All And shine like gold, And starlike gleam in the immortal's hall, The heavenly fold, And drink the sun-breaths from the Mother's lips Awhile, and then Fail from the light and drop in dark eclipse To earth again, Roaming along by heaven-hid promontory And valley dim, Weaving a phantom image of the glory They knew in Him. Out of the fulness flow the winds, their song Is heard no more, Or hardly breathes a mystic sound along The dreamy shore, Blindly they move, unknowing as in trance; Their wandering Is half with us, and half an inner dance, Led by the King. 

 

 

 A WAY OF ESCAPE 

 There's a way of escape through the Gate of Sorrow, A light at the end of the Path of Pain: But our joy and our love can have no to-morrow, And to drink is to sink to the earth again. 

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