THE GATE OF THE SANCTUARY
> ae
189
‘*Resolve all question by a moonward
tread. ‘
Follow the moon !”
said.
My thought had thanked him for the generous
breath
Wherewith he warned us: for delay were
death.
And now, too late! no moon is overhead—
Some other meaning in the words he saith?
Even so the king had
Or, am I tricked in such a little snare?
I lifted up my eyes. What soul stood there,
Fronting my path? Tall, stately, delicate,
A woman fairer than a pomegranate.
A silver spear her hands of lotus hear,
One shaft of moonlight quivering and
straight.
She pointed to the East with flashing eyes :
“Thou canst not see her—but my Queen
shall rise.”
Bowed head and heating heart, with feet
unsure
I passed her, trembling, for she was too pure.
I could have loved her. No: she was too
wise.
Her presence was too gracious to endure.
‘‘She did not bid me go and chain me to
her,”
I cried, comparing.
her
For One beyond all song 1—my poor heart
turned ;
Then, *tis no wonder.
burned
Mightier yet than ever. To renew her
Venom from those pure eyes? And yet I
yearned.
Then, my spirit knew
And my passion
Still, I stepped onward. Credit me so far !
The harlot had my soul: my will, the star !
Thus I went onward, as a man goes blind,
Into a torrent crowd of mine own kind ;
Jostlers and hurried folk and mad they are,
A million actions and a single mind.
1 The '‘ Higher Self.”
‘‘What is thy purpose, sweet my lord?” I
pressed
One stalwart.. ‘*Ah! the quest,” he cried,
‘* the quest.”
God’s heart! the antics, as they toil and
shove !
One grabs a coin, one life, another love.
All shriek, ‘‘ The prize is mine!” as men
possessed. .
I was not fooled at anything thereof.
Rather I hated them, and scorned for
slaves;
‘*Fools! all your treasure is at last the
grave’s !”
Mine eyes had fixed them on the sphinx,
the sky.
‘*Ts then this quest of immortality?”
And echo answered from some unseen caves :
Mortality ! I shrink, and wonder why.
Strange I am nothing tainted with this fear
Now, that had touched me first. For I am
here
Half-way I reckon to the field of salt,
The pillar, and the bones—it was a fault
Lam cured of! praise to God! What meets
mine ear,
That every nerve and bone of me cries halt?
What is this cold that nips me at the throat?
This shiver in my blood ? this icy note
Of awe within my agonising brain?
Neither of shame, nor love, nor fear, nor
pain,
Nor anything?
Courage no
again.
Ifas love no antidote,
buckler? Tlark! it comes
Friend, hast thou heard the wailing of the
damned ?
Fricnd, hast thou listened when a murderer
shammed
Pale smiles amid his fellows as they spoke
Low of his crime: his fear is like to choke |
lis palsied throat. Tlow, if Hells gate
were slammed
This very hour upon thy womanfolk?