rampires of forbidden thought,
Thread life's dim gardens masked like revellers
Where dreams of roses red are dearly bought.
We shall ride haughtily as bright Crusaders,
As hooded palmers fare with humbled hearts,
And we shall find, adoring blithe invaders,
The City of Seven Towers, of Seven Arts.--
Then the Last Quest, (lead you the dreadful way!)
Among the unimagined Nebulae!

XXXII

THE SUM OF THINGS

TO ANOTHER WOMAN

Well, I am tired, who fared to divers ends,
And you are not, who kept the beaten path;
But mystic Vintagers have been my friends,
Even Love and Death and Sin and Pride and Wrath.
Wounded am I, you are immaculate;
But great Adventurers were my starry guides:
From God's Pavilion to the Flaming Gate
Have I not ridden as an immortal rides?
And your dry soul crumbles by dim degrees
To final dust quite happily, it appears,
While all the sweetness of her nectaries
Can only stand within my heart like tears.
O throbbing wounds, rich tears, and splendour spent,--
Ye are all my spoil, and I am well content.

XXXIII

REACTION

Give me a chamber paved with emerald
And hung with arras green as evening skies,
Broidered with halcyons, moons, and heavily thralled
White lilies, cold rare comfort for the eyes.
Of triumph built was radiant yesterday:
Like an imperial eagle to the sun
My soul bare up her dreams the glorious way
Through flagrant ordeals august, and won
To burning eyries, till beneath her wing
Rankled the shaft. Her Archer was abroad;
And hooded with strange darkness, shuddering
Down pain's dull spiral, sank she on the sod.
Close round, green dusk of dews! No more we dare
The blue inviolate castles of the air.

XXXIV

THE IDEALIST

For such an one let lovers cry, Alas!
Since passion's leaguer shall break through in vain
To that cold centre of bright adamas.--
Storm through her being, rapturous spears of pain!
Ye shall not wound that queen of gracious guile,
The soul that with immortal trance keeps troth:
For Helen is in Egypt all the while,
Learning great magic from the Wife of Thoth.
Throned white and high on red-rose porphyry,
And coifed with golden wings, she lifts her eyes
O'er Nile's green lavers where most sacredly
The Pattern of the myriad Lotos lies,
Unto those clear horizons jasper-pale
Her heavenly Brethren ride in silver mail.

XXX