Collected Works (Vol. III)

156 ORPHEUS Dawn shakes the molten fire of my delight From the fine flower and fragrance of my tresses ! Sunset bids darken all my body’s light, Mixing its music with the sad caresses Of the whole world: I wheel in wingless flight Through lampless space, the starless wildernesses ! Beyond the universal bounds that roll, There is the shrine and image of my soul. Nature my name is called. O fruitless veil Of the strange self of its own self begotten ! O vision laughterless! O shadowy tale! O brain that halts before its thought for- gotten! Once all ye knew me—ere the earth grew pale, And Time began, and all its fruit lay rotten, Once, when thou knewest me indeed, and fed At these strong breasts—Ah! but the days are dead ! Now, in the dusty corridors of Time, I am forgotten: Gaian 1! language falters IfI would teach thee half an hint sublime Shed of the rayless fire upon my altars. Vain are the light and laughter of man’s rime, Vain the large hymns, and soaring songs and psalters ! My face, my breast, no soul of man uncovers, Nor is my bed made lovely with my lovers ! I long for purple and the holier kiss Of mortal lyrist ; in these arms to gladden ; To take him to the spring and source of bliss, And in his vast embrace to rouse me, madden Once with the light of passion, not to miss Uttermost rapture till the sweet loves sadden To sweeter ecstasy— Ah! man’s high spirit may not reach to Me! peace thrilled with young 1 J.e,, terrestrial: from Gaia, a form of yj, the earth. Iam Nature and God: I reign, Iam, alone. None other may abide apart: they perish, Drawn into me, into my being grown. None other bosom is, to bear, to nourish, To be: the heart of all beneath my zone Of blue and gold is scarlet-bright to cherish My own’s life being, that is, and js not other $ For I am God and Nature and thy Mother. I am the thousand-breasted milky spouse, Virginal also: Tartarus and Gaia Twinned in my womb, and Chaos from my brows Shrank back abashed, my sister dark and dire, Mother of Erebus and Night, that ploughs With starry-sandalled feet the fields of fire ; My sister shrank and fell, the infernal gloom Changed to the hot sweet shadow of my- womb. Iam: that darkness strange and uterine Is shot with dawn and scented with the YOSe ; The deep dim prison-house of corn and wine, Flowers, children, stars, with flame far subtler glows Formless, all-piercing, death-defying, divine, A sweet frail lamp whose shadow gleams and shows No darkness, is as light is where its rays Cross, interweave, and marry with the day’s ! Iam: the heart that flames from central Me Seeks out all life, and takes again, to iningle Its passion with my might and majesty, Till the vast floods of the man’s being tingle And glow, self-lost within my soul and sea Of love, and sun of utter light, and single Keen many-veinéd heart: our lips and kisses Marry and muse on our immortal blisses. Iam: the greatest and the least : the sole And separate life of things. The mighty stresses Of worlds are my nerves twitching. Branch and bole Of forests waving in deep wildernesses