AMBERGRIS 
91 
3.  In vain the solemn stars pour their pale dews 
Upon my trembling spirit ;  their caress 
Leaves me moon-rapt in waves of loveliness 
All thine, O rose, O wrought of many a must 
In Music, O thou strength of ecstasy 
Incarnate in a woman-form, create 
Of her own rapture, infinite, ultimate, 
Not to be seen, not grasped, not even imaginable, 
But known of one, by virtue of that spell 
Of thy sweet will toward him :  thou, unknown, 
Untouched, grave mistress of the sunlight throne 
Of thine own nature ;  known not even of me, 
But of some spark of woven eternity 
Immortal in this bosom.  Phosphor paled 
And in the grey upstarted the dread veiled 
Rose light of dawn.  Sun-shaped shone thy spears 
Of love forth darting into myriad spheres, 
Which I the poet called this light, that flower, 
This knowledge, that illumination, power 
This and love that, in vain, in vain, until 
Thy beauty dawned, all beauty to distil 
Into one drop of utmost dew, one name 
Choral as floral, one thin, subtle flame 
Fitted to a shaft of love, to pierce, to endue 
My trance-rapt spirit with the avenue 
Of perfect pleasures, radiating far 
Up and up yet to where thy sacred star 
Burned in its brilliance :  thence the storm was shed 
A passion of great calm about this head, 
This head no more a poet’s ;  since the dream 
Of beauty gathered close into a stream 
Of tingling light, and, gathering ever force 
From thine own love, its unextended source, 
Became the magic utterance that makes Me, 
Dissolving self into the starless sea 
That makes one lake of molten joy, one pond 
Steady as light and hard as diamond ; 
One drop, one atom of constraint intense, 
Of elemental passion corning sense,