LVII
THE IRONIST
Among high gods the absolute ironist
Is Love. Therefore, when some cleft lightning mocks
Thine arrogant rapture, sad idealist,
Admire the wild play of his paradox.
Great satires of reversal have astounded
His bigots: proud fine dreamers confident
Before an idol in their image are hounded
Through comedies of disillusionment.
Not heavenly Plato, not the Florentine,
Not any mage of Epipsychidion
Can the true nature of the god divine.
Heresiarchs like Heine and like Donne,
Bitter and sweet, and hot and cold, know best
The incomparable anguish of his jest.
LVIII
IN VAIN
I said: "Confession's bitter cautery
Shall fierily search my soul, destroy her ill."
Natheless, the wounded wasting malady
Is her unexorcised sad sovran still.
Oh! that alembic fever of interwed
Desire and dream and sense, rapture and rue!
As soon as my sincerest words are said
And heard they seem apostate and untrue.
For only speech more richly dubious
Than shoaling water, or a ringdove's breast,
Than lighted incense more miraculous
With fumes of strange remembrance, could attest
The morbid beauty of that wasting ill
Whereof I am the cureless lover still.
LIX
RESERVATIONS