Orpheus

I am: before me all the years are dead, And all the fiery locks of sunrise woven Into the gold and scarlet of my head: In me all skies and seas are shaken and cloven: All life and light and love about me shed Begotten in me, in my moving moven, Are as my tears: all worlds that ever swam As dew of kisses on my lips: I am. But thou, chief lover, in whose golden heart The melody and music lifts its pzean, Whose lyre fulfilled of me, fathered of Art And that Sun’s song beyond the Empyréan, Who art myself, not any more apart, Having called my children by the call Pandean, Mellowed with Delphian gold, the Ephesian quiver, To float down Time for ever and for ever ;— I am thy lyre and thou mine harper: thou My music, I thy spirit: thou the lover And I the bride: the glory of my brow Deeper delight, new ardour, to discover Stoops in thine heart ; my love and light endow Thy life with fervour as I bend me over The starry curve and surface of the sea, And kiss thy very life out into me. O central fountain of my yearning veins! O mountain single-soaring, thou art blended Into my heaven : prescient of the pains That shall bring forth—what worlds? my heart is rended! 105