Out flames
the miracle of life and love !
Out, out the lights
!
Flame,
flame,
the rushing storm !
Darkness
and death,
and glory
in my soul !
Swept, swept away are pope and cardinal,
Palace and city !
There I lay beneath
The golden roof of the eternal stars,
Borne up on some irremeable sea
That glowed with most internal brilliance
;
Borne up, borne up by hands invisible
Into a firmament of secret
light
Manifest,
open,
permeating me !
Then,
then, I cried upon the mystic Word
!
(That once begot in me the Venusberg)
And lo ! that light was darkness —in the face
Of That which gleamed above.
And verily
My life was borne on the dark stream of death
Down whirling aeons,
linked
abysses,
columns
Built of essential time.
And lo ! the light
Shed from Her shoulders whom I dimly saw
;
Crowned
with twelve stars and horned as the moon ;
Clothed
with a sun to which the sun of earth
Were tinsel
; and the moon was at Her feet —
A moon whose brilliance breaks the sword of song
Into a million fragments
; so transcends
Music, that starlight-sandalled
majesty !
Then—shall I contemplate the face of Her
?
O Nature
!
Self-begotten
!
Spouse of God,
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