The Equinox (Volume III, Number I)

THE SEVENFOLD SACRAMENT Were the river and the birds. So close it swaddled me, and bound My being in the pure profound Of its own stealthy intimacy, Had Artemis come panting by, Silver-shod with bow and quiver Hunting along the reedy river, And called me to the chase, I should Have neither heard nor understood. Or had Zeus his dangerous daughter, Aphrodite, from the water Risen all shining, her soft arms Open, all her spells and charms Melted to one lure divine Of her red mouth pressed to mine, T had neither heard nor seen Nor felt the Idalian. Between My soul and all its knowledge of The universe of light and love, Thought, being, nature, time and space, The Mother’s heart, the Father’s face, All that was agony or bliss, Stretched an infinite abyss. All that behind me! but my soul, With no star left to point the pole, Witless and banned of grace or goal, Beggared of all its wealth, bereft Of all its images, unweft Its magic web, its tools all broken, Its Name forgot, its Word unspoken,