If my virtue be a dancer’s virtue, and if I have often sprung with both feet into golden-emerald rapture:
If my wickedness be a laughing wickedness, at home among rose-banks and hedges of lilies:
—For in laughter is all evil present, but it is sanctified and absolved by its own bliss:—
And if it be my Alpha and Omega that everything heavy shall become light, every body a dancer, and every spirit a bird: and verily, that is my Alpha and Omega!—
Oh, how could I not be ardent for Eternity, and for the marriage-ring of rings—the ring of the return?
Never yet have I found the woman by whom I should like to have children, unless it be this woman whom I love: for I love thee, O Eternity!
FOR I LOVE THEE, O ETERNITY! 7.
If ever I have spread out a tranquil heaven above me, and have flown into mine own heaven with mine own pinions:
If I have swum playfully in profound luminous distances, and if my freedom’s avian wisdom hath come to me:—
—Thus however speaketh avian wisdom:—“Lo, there is no above and no below! Throw thyself about,—outward, backward, thou light one! Sing! speak no more!