Oracles

90 VENUS Give me the strength of a panther, the tiger’s strenuous sides, The lion’s limbs that span there some thrice the turn of the tides, The mutinous fame, the terror of the royal Minotaur, That our loves may make a mirror of the dreadful soul of war ! For love is an equal soul, and shares an equal breath. I am nought—and thou the whole ? It were not love, but Death. Give me thy life and strength, let us struggle for mastery, As the long shore’s rugged length that battles with the sea. I am thine, I am thine indeed ! My form is vaster grown, And our limbs and lips shall bleed on the starry solar throne. My life is made as thine ; my blessing and thy curse Beget, as foam on wine, a different universe. I foam and live and leap : thou laughest, fightest, diest ! In agony swift as sleep thou hangest as the Christ. My nails are in thy flesh ; my sweat is on thy brow ; We are one, we are made afresh, we are Love and Nature now. I am swifter than the wind : I am wider than the sea : I am one with all mankind : and the earth is made as we. The stars are spangles bright on the canopy of our bed, And the sun is a veil of light for my lover’s golden head.