more,
Gathers it jealously within the gates
Of the hushed heart; but, mightier than before,
The mystery prevails and overpowers
Stem, leaf, and petal. So the passion lies
In this tranced flowery being which is ours
Like to a hidden wound; yet softly dyes
With dolorous beauty all the stuff of life,
Each dream and vision and desire subduing
With muted pulses, that great counter-strife
Of soul with its own rhythmic pangs imbuing.
Deny it and disdain it. Lo! there beat
Red stigmata in heart and hands and feet.

XXI

SOUL AND BODY

It may be all my pain is woven wrong,
And this wild "I" is nothing but a dream
The body exhales, as roses at evensong
Their passionate odour. Verily it may seem
That this most fevered and fantastic wear
Of nerves and senses is myself indeed,
The rest, illusion taken in that snare.--
But still the fiery splendour and the need
Can bite like actual flame and hunger. Ah!
If Sense, bewildered in the spiral towers
Of Matter, dreamed this great Superbia
I call the Soul, not less the Dream hath powers;
Not less these Twain, being one, are separate,
Like lovers whose love is tangled hard with hate.

XXII

SOUL AND BODY

II

Sometimes the Soul in pure hieratic rule
Is throned (as on some high Abbatial chair
Of moon-pearl and rose-rubies beautiful)
Within the body grown serene and fair:
Sometimes it weds her like a lifted rood;
But she endures, and wills no anodyne,
For then she flowers within the mystic Wood,
And hath her lot with gods--and seems divine:
Sometimes it is her lonely oubliet,
Sometimes a marriage-chamber sweet with spice:
It is her triumph-car with flutes beset,
The altar where she lies a sacrifice.--
Cold images! The truth is not in these.
Both are alive, both quick with rhapsodies.

XXIII

THE JUSTIFICATION

Life I adore, and not Life's accidents.
A garlanded and dream-fast thurifer
My Soul comes out from beauty's purple tents
That incense-troubled Love may grieve and stir,
Be ransomed from satiety's sad graves,
And go to God up the bright stair of Wonder.
Since passion makes immortal Time's tired slaves
I am of those that delicately sunder
Corruptions of contentment from the breast
As with rare steel. Like music I unveil
Last things, till, weary of earthen cups and rest,
You seek Montsalvat and the burning Grail.
Ah! bli