War! War!—bring me helmet and shield and the sword of the spirit; the great weaponed SELF that I seek and that forever seeks me
Is shut in a tower of gold o’ergrown with weeds and the rank, poisonous fungi of outworn selves,
And here, gripped in these forces elemental, I make a passionate compact with my dumb, brutish instincts
To assail every live-dead thing that hinders my march to that tower of gold, o’ergrown, untended, unkenned;
And there in the winds, in a fury of battle, deliver the SELF in the light of the sun—
SELF that shall live to its uttermost transfigured instinct,
SELF that am God of all gods.
IN THE ADYTUM
What finger-marks these on the white knob of my door?
Narrow, black finger-prints, telltale of thinkers and ghosts,
Or maybe somnambules who have walked out of the world,
Or he, beloved of my soul: Has he called?—where loafed I then?
Who wills may enter,
But none have I seen—
Seen enter the door that’s ajar,
The door of my soul swung on the hinges of doubt.