LIBER QUARTUS VEL MORTIS 217
Long after (to men: but a moment
To'me in my mansion of rest)
Is a sundawn to blaze what the glow meant
Seen long after death in the west ;
A magical zeon !
Nor love-song nor pzean,
But a flame with a silvery crest.
There shall rise a sweet song of the soul
Far deeper than love or distress ;
Beyond mortals and gods shall it roll ;
It shall find me, and crave, and caress.
Ah! me it shall capture
In torrents of rapture ;
It shall flood me, and fill, and possess.
For brighter from age unto age
The weary old world shall renew
Its life at the lips of the sage,
Its love at the lips of the dew.
With kisses and tears
The return of the years
Is sure as the starlight is true.
Yet the drift of the stars is to beauty,
To strength, and to infinite pleasure.
The toil and the worship and duty
Shall turn them to laughter and leisure.
Were the world understood
Ye would see it was good,
A dance to a delicate measure.
Ye fools, interweaving in passion
The lyrical light of the mind !
Go on, in your drivelling fashion !
Ye shall surely seek long and not find.
From without ye may see
All the beauty of me,
And my lips, that their kisses are kind.
For Eurydice once I lamented ;
For Orpheus I do not lament :
Her days were a span, and demented ;
His days are for aye, and content.
Mere love is as nought
To the love that is Thought,
And idea is more than event.
O lovers! O poets! O masters
Of me, ye may ravish my frown !
Aloof from my shocks and disasters !
Impatient to kiss me, and crown !
I am eager to yield.
In the warrior field
Ye shall fight me, and fasten me down.
O poets! O masters! O lovers!
Sweet souls of the strength of the sun !
The couch of eternity covers
Our loves, and our dreams are as done.
Reality closes
Our life into roses ;
We are infinite space: we are one.
There is one! that hath sought me and
found ine
In the heart of the sand and the snow:
He hath caught me, and held me, and
bound ine,
In the lands where no flower may grow.
His voice is a spell,
Hath enchanted me well !
I am his, did I will it or no.
But I will it, I will it, I will it!
His speck of a soul in its cars
Shall lift up immensity ! fill it
With light of his lyrical bars.
His soul shall concentre
All space ;. he shall enter
The beautiful land of the stars.
He shall know me eternally wedded
To the splendid and subtle of mind;
For the pious, the arrogant-headed,
He shall know they nor seek me nor fina.
O afloat in me curled !
Cry aloud to the world
That I and my kisses are kind !
O lover! O poet ! O maiden
To me in my magical way !
Be thy songs with the wilderness laden !
Thy lyre be adrift and astray :—
So to me thou shalt cling !
So to me thou shalt sing
Of the beautiful law of the day !
1 Possibly intended as a reference to the
poet himself,