Collected Works (Vol. I)

THE GATE OF THE SANCTUARY I9I So was the chilling whisper at my side, Or in my brain. Then surged the madden- ing tide Of my intention. Onward! Let me run! Thy steed, O Moon! Thy chariot, O Sun! Lend me fierce feet, winged sandals, wings as wide As thine, O East wind! won ! And the goal is Was ever such a cruel solitude? Up rears the pillar. Quaintly shaped and hued, It focussed all the sky and all the plain To its own ugliness. I looked again, And saw its magic in another mood. A shapeless truth took image in my brain. A hollow voice from every quarter cries : ‘*Q thou, zelator of this Paradise, Tell thou the secret of the pillar! None Can hear thee, of the souls beneath the sun. Speak, or the very Godhead in thee dies. For we are many and thy name is One.” The Godhead in me! came The jealous secret and the guarded name. The quest was mine! And yet my thoughts confute My intuition ; and my will was mute. My voice—ah! flashes out the word of flame : ‘* Eternal Beauty, One and absolute !” As a flash there The overwhelming sweetness ofa voice Filled me with Godhead. ‘Still remains the choice! Thou knowest me for Beauty! bear The fuller vision, the abundant air?” I only wept. The elements rejoice ; No tear before had ever fallen there. Canst thou I thought within myselfa bitter thing, Standing abased. The golden marriage ring The queen had given—how her beauty stank Now in mine eyes, where once their passion drank Its secret sweets of poison. Let the spring Of love once dawn—all else hath little thank! Yet resolute I put my love away. It could not live in this.amazing day. Love is the lotus that is sickly sweet, That makes men drunken, and betrays their feet : Beauty, the sacred lotus: let me say The word, and make my purity complete. The whole is mine, and shall I keep a part ? O Beauty, I must see thee as thou art! Then on my withered gaze that Beauty grew— Rosy quintessence of alchemic dew ! The Self-informing Beauty! In my heart The many were united: and I knew. Smitten by Beauty down I fell as dead— So strikes the sunlight on a miner’s head. Blind, stricken, crushed! That vast efful- gence stole, Flooded the caverns of my secret soul, And gushed in waves of weeping. I was wed Unto a part, and could not grasp the whole. Thus, I was broken on the wheel of Truth. Fled all the hope and purpose of my youth, The high desire, the secret joy, the sin That coiled its rainbow dragon scales within. Hope’s being, life’s delight, time’s eager tooth ; All, all are gone; the serpent sloughs his skin ! The quest is mine! Here ends mortality In contemplating the eternal Thee. Here, She is willing. Stands the Absolute Reaching its arms toward me. Iam mute, T draw toward. Oh, suddenly I see The treason-pledge, the royal prostitute.