  Passion flower unfolding in darkness! Glow-worm under a spray of lilac! Flame on the altar of love! Beloved in your chamber! The phoenix moon rising from the ashes of day Spreads her wings of saffron fire Above the enchanted garden. And I brush away the leaves of night To find the star of my love. I part the curtains about the altar, I enter your chamber, beloved. ***** I have entered your chamber, beloved, I have found my star. Between kisses and whispers And the silken touch of flesh Breast to breast, lips to lips, Our souls are seeking and drifting! As an albatross hovers and flies With the running sea ... Powers of body, powers of spirit, Divinities Awakened never before, Hidden in nerves asleep, in veins without a tide Flow through us. I give you my life, beloved, For life of you, given to me— O bride of love! ***** O hair of fire! O breasts of light, Like double stars! O voice like a lute that whispers At midnight, in a bower of roses! O body luminous as the nebulous waste Across the midnight, Pour on my breast, my hands, my brow The sacred fire, As our flesh becomes one Upborne by your breasts, White as bridal blossoms Where there is yet no milk, But only eddying blood Circling in whirlpools of delirious ecstasy In time with the blood of me. Our lips together, our bodies together While the yearning urn of porphyry Waits to drink the silver stream, And thirsts to drink, And poises like a gold fish waiting For the stream of silver fire.... ***** But oh, hands of me that clasp your sunny head, Drawing it close to my breast, In rapture of its beauty! O temple of your spirit! Spirit of you which I woo and would win, In rapture without will, In rapture blind, save for the inspired urge, In rapture seeking further rapture, In rapture to wed your spirit fully, And all your spirit, which my spirit Through the unity of flesh would reach And win, and keep— Bride of lightning! Bride of Life! ***** As when the butterfly slowly moves his wings Drawing from the virgin core of honeysuckles The sweetest drop of dew:— So pause his wings spread wide When all is gained. ***** Goddess of the white dawn, Let my beloved sleep— Robins that sing at dawn, Wake not my beloved! I sleep with my beloved, And she sleeps with me, And a life sleeps now That will wake! |
|
