LI I
HYPNEROTOMACHIA
Ah! Pride and Wrath and Mirth and Pain and Pity,
Some amethystine day at last will be,
When your bright guard and Phantasy's hill-city
Shall be like wonders on a tapestry;
And we shall touch between tired orisons
The symbolism of those freaked crowns and wings,—
Then gaze across the falling Avalons,
The resignations of autumnal things,
And see among the pointed cypresses
The one god left, the smiling perverse god,
The Love that will not leave the loverless,
Contending with the Stranger of the Rod,—
Until these twain become as one, and all
The Soul and Sense be starrily vesperal.
LIII
THE REVOLT
Not so, my Soul? Rather for thee the fate
Of those hieratic Carthaginian queens
Who needs must vanish through the gods' own gate,
Even holy Flame, with music and great threnes
Idolatrous, as on soft gorgeous wings,
If Time's least kiss had subtly disallowed
Their beauty's sacred unisons?—Fair things
Desire their revel-raiment be their shroud.
Yet, fierce insurgent, cease vain wars to wage!
Art thou so pure as to decline, forsooth,
These penitential usages of age
That expiate proud cruelties of youth,
And bring thee to the last and perfect art,
To love the lovely with a selfless heart?
LIV
AFTER MANY YEARS