Rosa Coeli

The rose flames out in the flood ; and all at once, A brilliance disembodied, I am shattered like the dew upon your leaves ; So that the lampless hour Strikes, and an unborn universe perceives Its lonely mother-flower, Us, in our love’s arcane Briatic bower. We scatter light, a music-tingling shower ; We breathe out life, a crimson whisper ; We radiate love, a velvet-soft complaint, Most like the echo of a chime at vesper Rung far across narcissus-haunted leas, Lilied lagoons, and moon-enchaunted seas, By the high-bosomed boy, large-eyed, with fasting faint, That shares an hermitage with some devoutest saint. III S, in our life, I passed the awful gate Where like a Cerberus sate The triform silence, Fate, And bade the red blood bloom Within that Palace of untasted gloom ; As, in our life, confronting the black forms— Colossal ghosts, like storms !— I did abide in the most holy hall And let the dread word fall, Nor bade the red axe falter 4 A