THE GATE OF THE SANCTUARY
185
THE LESBIAN HELL.
THE unutterable void of Ifell is stirred
By gusts of sad wind moaning ; the inane
Quivers with melancholy sounds unheard,
Unpastured woes, and unimagined pain,
And kisses flung in vain.
Pale women fleet around, whose infinite
Long sorrow and desire have torn their
wombs,
Whose empty fruitlessness assails the night
With hollow repercussion, like dim tombs
Wherein some vampire glooms.
Pale women sister
breast ;
Lone sisterhood of voiceless melancholy
That wanders in this Hell, desiring rest
From that desire that dwells for ever free,
Monstrous, a storm, a sea.
sickening for some
In that desire their hands are strained and
wrung ;
In that most infinite passion beats the
blood,
And bursting chants of amorous agony flung
To the void Hell, are lost, not nnderstood,
Unheard by evil or good.
Their sighs attract the unsubstantial shapes
Of other women, and their kisses burn
Cold on the lips whose purple blood escapes,
A thin chill stream; they feel not nor
discern,
Nor love’s low laugh return.
They kiss the spiritual dead, they pass
Like mists uprisen from the frosty moon,
Like shadows fliceting in a seer’s glass,
Beckoning, yearning, amorous of the noon
When earth dreams on in swoon.
They are so sick for sorrow, that my eyes
Are moist because their passion was so fair,
So pure and comely that no sacrifice
Seems to waft up a sweeter savour there,
Where God’s grave ear takes prayer.
O desecrated lovers ! O divine
Passionate martyrs, Virgin unto death!
O kissing daughters of the unfed brine!
O sisters of the west wind’s pitiful breath,
There is One that pitieth !
One far above the heavens crowned alone,
Immitigable, intangible, a maid,
Incomprehensible, divine, unknown,
Who loves your leve, and to high God
hath said :
‘¢To me these sungs are made !”’
So in a little from the silent Hell
Rises a spectre, disanvinted now,
Who bears a cup of poison terrible,
The seal of God upon his blasted brow,
To whom Lis angels bow,
Rise, Phantom disanointed, and proclaim
Thine own destruction, and the
death
Of those material essences that ame
A little moment for a little breath,
The love that perisheth !
sleepy
Kise, sisters, who have ignorantly striven
On pale pure limbs to pasture your desire,
Who should have fixed your souls on highest
Ileaven,
And satiated your longings in that fire,
And struck that mightier lyre !
Let the ripe kisses of your thirsty throats
And beating blossoms of your breath, and
flowers
Of swart himitable hair that floats
Vague and caressing, and the amorous
powers
Of your unceasing hours,
The rich hot fragrance of your dewy skins,
The eyes that yearn, the breasts that bleed,
the thighs
That cling and cluster to these infinite sins,
Forget the earthlier pleasures of the prize,
And raise diviner sighs ;