Oracles

VENUS 89 Thou art all too far for my kiss : thou art hidden past my prayer. Thy wing too wide, and the bliss too sweet for me to share. Thou art Nature and God ! I am broken in the wheelings of thy car ; Thy love-song unheard or unspoken, and I cannot see thy star. Thou art not cold, but bitter is thy burning cry to me. My tiny heart were fitter for a mortal than for thee. But I cast away the mortal, and I choose the tortured way, And I stand before thy portal, and my face is cold and grey. Thou lovest me with a love more terrible than death ; But thou art in the above, and my wings feel no wind’s breath. Thou art all too fierce and calm, too bitter and sweet, alas ! Thou weavest a cruel charm on my soul that is as glass. I know thee not, who art naked ; I lie beneath thy feet Who hast called till my spirit achèd with a pang too deathly sweet. Thou has given thee to me dying, and made thy bed to me. I shiver, I shrink, and, sighing, lament it cannot be. I have no limbs as a God’s to close thee in and hold : Too brief are my periods, and my hours are barren of gold. I am not thewed as Jove to kill thee in one caress ! Not a golden shower is my love, but a child’s tear of distress.