The Winged Beetle

14 ROSA COELI XIV Give me thine hand, Rose of the Stars, and we will soar above Wisdom and Strength and Love, Into the sphere where all delight retires In azure flames and silver-edgéd fires. Now through the veil we shoot Like snaky lightning through a thundercloud Up to the awful precipice-skirted place Where deaf, blind, palsied, mute There sits the leprous God ; we laugh aloud Seeing him face to face, Blowing him like a shaken sheaf of snow With a brief gust of wind Over the cliffs of his ensanguine throne ; Seating ourselves thereon, as men shall know, Above soul, spirit, heart, thought, being, mind, All—but most irrevocably entwined And irrevocably alone. XV There was a boy with O ! the face of dawn, The mother-of-pearl that shimmered on his skin. The breasts like golden roses circling red, The limbs like limbs of a young fawn For litheness—O ! for innocence of sin His eyes burned wondrous bright, his sun-crowned head Danced with its sweet and sacred hopes, So that he paced the enamelled slopes