  I have been kissed by the Priestess of the Thin and Deadly Blood— With the kiss that men call Lightning, and yet I did not die, For the kiss was a message from God; I felt it and understood, And I knew how He looked on the cosmic light and called it "Good"; I thrilled with a vibrant joy; I hummed with ecstasy. Men hear me sing but they know not the source of my song; I hold them enthralled with my mysterious eyes; They quiver when I purr with the voice of a wanton woman; They touch me and fall dead. I am a dream of the Creator made visible; My voice is an echo of the Voice that taught The morning stars their choral hymn; The force that binds me to the marts of men Is the force that holds the planets in a leash while God Drives them in glittering galaxy around the sun. That spins the luminous girdle of Saturn in sure hands, And frames the awful face of God in the shifting boreal light. My soul is destiny and immortality; It flashes in the eyes of the tempest, glows along The phosphorescent billows where the hand of the Almighty Is laid for a moment on the breast of the sea, And the sea smiles; My soul is the wingless word That flies from zone to zone and speaks suddenly out of the void. In the years that are to be I shall soar like an evil bird over the warring camps of men, And spew destroying poison. I shall be the sinew of a strange wing,— A wing that shall bear men into the forge of the thunder and the lightning. But when I fail the groundlings shall look up And see their brothers through the ether plunge, Stricken, a haggard rout of flame-flotillas of the sun! I shall be a servant in the house of men; I shall breathe unutterable music on the spindle and the loom; I shall sing, exultant, with the choristers of dreams fulfilled, And light shall be bound like sandals on my feet. I have been kissed by the Priestess of the Thin and Deadly Blood— With the kiss that men call Lightning, and yet I did not die, For the kiss was a message from God; I felt it and understood, And I knew how He looked on the cosmic light and called it "Good"; I thrilled with a vibrant joy; I hummed with ecstasy. |
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