Then was the lyre of Earth beheld, Then heard by me: it holds me linked; Across the years to dead-ebb shores I stand on, my blood-thrill restores. But would I conjure into me Those issue notes, I must review What serious breath the woodland drew; The low throb of expectancy; How the white mother-muteness pressed On leaf and meadow-herb; how shook, Nigh speech of mouth, the sparkle-crest Seen spinning on the bracken crook.
With Life and Death I walked when Love appeared, And made them on each side a shadow seem. Through wooded vales the land of dawn we neared, Where down smooth rapids whirls the helmless dream To fall on daylight; and night puts away Her darker veil for grey.
In that grey veil green grassblades brushed we by; We came where woods breathed sharp, and overhead Rocks raised clear horns on a transforming sky: Around, save for those shapes, with him who led And linked them, desert varied by no sign Of other life than mine.
By this the dark-winged planet, raying wide, From the mild pearl-glow to the rose upborne, Drew in his fires, less faint than far descried, Pure-fronted on a stronger wave of morn: And those two shapes the splendour interweaved, Hung web-like, sank and heaved.
Love took my hand when hidden stood the sun To fling his robe on shoulder-heights of snow. Then said: There lie they, Life and Death in one. Whichever is, the other is: but know, It is thy craving self that thou dost see, Not in them seeing me.
Shall man into the mystery of breath, From his quick breathing pulse a pathway spy? Or learn the secret of the shrouded death, By lifting up the lid of a white eye? Cleave thou thy way with fathering desire Of fire to reach to fire.
Look now where Colour, the soul’s bridegroom, makes The house of heaven splendid for the bride. To him as leaps a fountain she awakes, In knotting arms, yet boundless: him beside, She holds the flower to heaven, and by his power Brings heaven to the flower.
He gives her homeliness in desert air, And sovereignty in spaciousness; he leads Through widening chambers of surprise to where Throbs rapture near an end that aye recedes, Because his touch is infinite and lends A yonder to all ends.
Death begs of Life his blush; Life Death persuades To keep long day with his caresses graced. He is the heart of light, the wing of shades, The crown of beauty; never soul embraced Of him can harbour unfaith; soul of him Possessed walks never dim.