AI]
The uninstructed and blaspheming man
Looks on the world and sees it void and base.
Let him endure its horror as he can !
There is no help fér his unhappy case.
The love-taught magus, the hermaphrodite,
Knows how to woo the Mother, and awake her:
Beholding, in the very self-same sight,
The self-illumined image of the Maker.
I love, and you are wise ; our spirits dance
A merry measure to the music moving
In waves through that mirific brilliance.
Will you first tire of wit, or I of loving:
Tire? O thou sea of love, thy ripples run
Into themselves, to my serener sun!
AIT!
For you I built this faery dome of words
And crowned it with the cross of my desire.
I circled it with songs of blessed birds
And cradled all in the celestial fire.
The stars enfold it ; the eternal sun
And moon give light; nor clouds nor rain intrude ;
Only the dews of Dionysus run
In this intoxicating solitude.
I have begemmed its marble flame of spires
With jewels from the bitss of God, and set
Chryselephantine columns curled like fires
Below each misty opal minaret.
Is there no window to the east? Behold
The eyes of Love, your love, the essential gold!