The Equinox (Volume I, Number X)

ROSA IGNOTA Till the gods grant me sleep I drink and drink Immortal dew: I am drunken on the brink. . . . So may I fall into the shadowy sea That surges under my unsteady feet; Already has the morning fled from me, And the stars call, and they are madly sweet With some lost vision that I know not of: It is not Death ; I think it is not Love. For I have tasted death and love, and these Shall not suffice; for love and death are one; In all the secret star-wrought harmonies, By married death and love is man undone. There is some secret thing I wot not of; It is not death; I know it is not love. So do my songs end here ; the hour is fled, And there are no more roses; I am fain To cease from singing. Wait! the hour is sped, My songs are turning into dreams again. Oh! now the hour is dead, and I am fain Awake life's young song back to soul again! THE EPILOGUE SHALL they avail, O wind, The things that I have heard? Because I am utterly blind, Did I hear the wings that whirred ? 197