XXXIII
REACTION
Give me a chamber paved with emerald
And hung with arras green as evening skies,
Broidered with halcyons, moons, and heavily thralled
White lilies, cold rare comfort for the eyes.
Of triumph built was radiant yesterday:
Like an imperial eagle to the sun
My soul bare up her dreams the glorious way
Through flagrant ordeals august, and won
To burning eyries, till beneath her wing
Rankled the shaft. Her Archer was abroad;
And hooded with strange darkness, shuddering
Down pain's dull spiral, sank she on the sod.
Close round, green dusk of dews! No more we dare
The blue inviolate castles of the air.
XXXIV
THE IDEALIST
For such an one let lovers cry, Alas!
Since passion's leaguer shall break through in vain
To that cold centre of bright adamas.—
Storm through her being, rapturous spears of pain!
Ye shall not wound that queen of gracious guile,
The soul that with immortal trance keeps troth:
For Helen is in Egypt all the while,
Learning great magic from the Wife of Thoth.
Throned white and high on red-rose porphyry,
And coifed with golden wings, she lifts her eyes
O'er Nile's green lavers where most sacredly
The Pattern of the myriad Lotos lies,
Unto those clear horizons jasper-pale
Her heavenly Brethren ride in silver mail.
XXXV
WOMAN AND VISION