Ambergris

AMBERGRIS 61 FROM ORACLES The Hermit’s Hymn to Solitude I. Mightiest Self ! Supreme in Self-Contentment ! Sole Spirit gyring in its own ellipse ; Palpable, formless, infinite presentment Of thine own light in thine own soul’s eclipse ! Let thy chast lips Sweep through the empty æthers guarding thee (As in a fortress girded by the sea The ranging winds and wings of air Lift the wild waves and bear Innavigable foam to seaward), bend thee down, Touch, draw me with thy kiss Into thine own deep bliss, Into thy sleep, thy life, thy imperishable crown ! Let that young godhead in thine eyes Pierce mine, fulfil me of their secrecies, Thy peace, thy purity, thy soul impenetrably wise. II. All things which are complete are solitary ; The circling moon, the inconscient drift of stars, The central systems. Burn they, change they, vary ? Theirs is no motion beyond the eternal bars. Seasons and scars Stain not the planets, the unfathomed home, The spaceless, unformed faces in the dome Brighter and blacker than all things, Borne under the eternal wings No whither ; solitary are the winter woods And caves not habited, And that supreme grey head Watching the groves : single the foaming amber floods,