I spun my soul about with soft cocoons
Of pleasure golden-pale. For me, for me
Were precious things put forth by crescent moons,
Of pearl and milky jade and ivory.
Grave players on ethereal harpsichords,
My senses wrought a music exquisite
As patterned roses, all my life's accords
Were richer, ghostlier than peacocks white.
So in my paradise reserved and fair
I grew as dreamlike as the Elysian dead;
Until a passing Wizard smote me there,
And suddenly my soul inherited
Some gorgeous terrible dukedom of desire
Like those in bright Andromeda's realms of fire.
L
AT THE END
The fiery permutations of the soul
Are infinite, but how to be revealed?
On what impassive matter must the whole
Inveterate coil of good and ill be sealed!
How much too simple all the tale of deeds
To pattern out these labyrinthine things,
These knots of bright unreason, ghostly bredes
Veiled weavers weave, moving with silver wings
Within the duskling sense. Most diverse visions
Their visionaries darkly reconcile
At one sad end. Fate's delicate derisions
Through the same hell of penance may beguile
Two women, who meet with alien eyes downcast;
Yet one stand first with Love, and one the last.
LI
THE SOUL OF AGE
I have seen delicate aged women wrought
Most tenderly by Time, their passionate past
By the wise vigils of forgiving thought
Amerced of pain, mere beauty at the last.
So may my soul be chaste, serene, enriched
Like an Etruscan mirror one has found
In kind oblivions, graciously bewitched
With precious patinas, a various round
Of milky opal, or turkis, or emerald,
Glistered with rubies faint and smoky pearls,
Where swirls of incised pattern have enthralled
Figures of sweet archaic gods and girls,
And I shall say: "Thou art a curious toy,
O soul that mirrored Love and Wrath and Joy!"