Collected Works (Vol. I)

THE ILOLY PLACE 197 The limitations of this deadly night That folds me for the sign of death and sin—- O Light ! descend! My feet move vaguely on In this amazing darkness, in the gloom That I can touch with trembling sense. There shone Once, in my misty memory, in the womb Of some unformulated thought, the fame And smoke of mighty pillars ; yet my mind Is clouded with the horror of this same Path of the wise men: for my soul is blind Yet: and the foemen I have never feared I could not see (if such should cross the way), And therefore Iam strange: my soul is seared With desolation of the blinding day I have come out from: yes, that fearful light Was not the Sun: my life has been the death, This death may be the life: my spirit sight Knows that at last, at least. My doubtful breath Is breathing in a nobler air; I know, I know it in my soul, despite of this, The clinging darkness of the Long Ago, Cruel as death, and closer than a kiss, This horror of great darkness. I am come Into this darkness to attain the light : To gain my voice I make myself as dumb: That I may see I close my outer sight : So, I am here. My brows are bent in prayer ; I kneel already in the Gates of Dawn ; And I am come, albeit unaware, To the deep sanctuary : my hope is drawn From wells profounder than the very sea. Yea, I am come, where least I guessed it so, Into the very Presence of the Three That Are beyond all Gods. And nowI know What spiritual Light is drawing me Up to its stooping splendour. In my soul I feel the Spring, the all-devouring Dawn, Rush with my Rising. There, beyond the goal, The Veil is rent ! Yes: let the veil be drawn. SIN. Yu rivers, and ye elemental caves, Above the fountains of the broken ice, Know ye what dragon lurks within your waves ? Know ye the secret of the cockatrice? The basilisk whose shapeless brood Take blood and muck for food? The sexless passion, the foul scorpion spawn ? The witches and the evil-chanting ones Who strangle stars and suns, Ivclipse the moon, and curse against the dawn ? Know ye the haunts of death? The hole that harboureth _ The sickening breath, Whence all disease is bred, and all corruption drawn ? Nay, these ye know not, or your waters cold Would stagnate, shudder, putrefy for fear ; Your echoes hate existence, and be rolled Into the silent, desolate, dead sphere. For im those sightless lairs No living spirit fares :— Caught in a chain, linked corpses for a lure ! Shall human senses feel Or human tongue reveal ? Nay, shall the mortal know them and endure Whose little period Is limited by God ; Whose poor abode Is the mean body, prey to all distemperature ? Yet, mortal, in the Light and Way Divine, Gird on the armour of the Holy One: Seek out the secret of the inmost shrine, Strong in the might and spirit of the sun. Arise, arise, arise, Give passage to mine eyes,