XIX
THE SEEKER
Curious and wistful through your soul I go.
With silver-tinkling feet I penetrate
Sealed chambers, and a puissant incense throw
Upon the smouldering braziers, love and hate:
And chaunt the grievèd verses of a dirge
For dying gods, remembering flutes and shawms:
With perverse moods I trouble you, and urge
The sense to beauty. Give me some sweet alms,
Some reverie, some pang of a damasked sword,
Some poignant moment yet unparalleled
In my dream-broidered chronicles, some chord
Of mystery Love's music never knelled
Before;—but nought of the rough alchemy
That disillusions all felicity.
XX
THE HIDDEN REVERIE
The life of plants, rising through dim sweet states,
Cloisters the rich love-secret more and more,
Gathers it jealously within the gates
Of the hushed heart; but, mightier than before,
The mystery prevails and overpowers
Stem, leaf, and petal. So the passion lies
In this tranced flowery being which is ours
Like to a hidden wound; yet softly dyes
With dolorous beauty all the stuff of life,
Each dream and vision and desire subduing
With muted pulses, that great counter-strife
Of soul with its own rhythmic pangs imbuing.
Deny it and disdain it. Lo! there beat
Red stigmata in heart and hands and feet.
XXI
SOUL AND BODY