Collected Works (Vol. I)

150 THE FATAL FORCE The pale sweet blooms of lotus burn; The scent of spring is in the soul ; Men’s spirits to the loftiest turn ; Light is extended and made whole. The waters of the whispering Nile Lisp of their loves a little while, Then break, like songsters, into sighing, Because the lazy days are dying; And swift and tawny strcams must rise World’s world to fertilise. The lotus is afire for love, | Its yearnings are immortal still ; But in its bosom, fed thereof, Lust, like a child, will.have his will. Immortal fervour, strangely blent With mystic sensual sacrament, Fills up its cups its petals tremble With faint desires that dissemble The fierce intention to be wed One with the spring sun’s head. The fountains of the river yearn Toward the sacred temple-walls, They foam upon the sands that burn With spring’s delirious festivals. They flash upon the gleaming ways, They cry, they chant aloud the praise Of Isis, and our temple kisses Their flowery water-wildernesses, Whose foamheads nestle to the stones With slumberous antiphones, All birds and beasts and fish are fain To mingle passion with the hope All creatures hold, that cycled pain May make its stream the wider scope Of many lives and changing law, Till to the sacred fountains draw Essences of dim being, mated With lofty substance uncreated, Concluding the full period That makes all being God. SAFI (disguzsed in the mask of a tort). I lift the censer. From the vast hall of death ! cries Hail, immortal queen, Dead Horus Towards the dawn, Bid me awake, O mother ! O mother ! from the darkness of the tomb, That live Osiris may cry back to thee, O spouse ! O sister! from the halls of life, The profound lake, the immeasurable depth, The sea of the three Loves!, O mother, mother ! Isis, the voice that even Amenti hears, Speak, that I rise from chaos, from the world Of shapeless and illusionary forms, Of dead men’s husks, and unsubstantial things. O mother, mother, mother! TI arise! RATOUM. Tlorus, dread godhead, child of me, arise ! Arise Osiris, to the sacred rites And marriage-bed of fuller deity. Now, at the serpent-motion of this wand, Rise from the dead! Arise, dead ITorus, rise To be Osiris. Isis speaks! Arise! [ The coffin ts opened. Tue LEPER és rarsed out of i swathed tn bandages. Out of the sleep of ages wake and live ! [ The wrappings fall off. THE LEPER. I am the resurrection and the death ! [Ratoum falls back shrieking. The priests raise a chant to stifle the sound. S’AFI (tearing off his mask). I am the hideous poison of thy veins And foulest fruit of thy incestuous womb. RATOUM. Iam thy mother! I have nurtured thee With woman’s tenderness and godhead’s strength. S’AFI, I am the avenger of my own false birth.