ove to me.
Through paths pine-fragrant, where the shaded ground
Is strewn with fruits of scarlet husk, I come,
As if through maidenhood's uncertainty,
Its darkness coloured with strange untried thoughts;
Hither I come, here to the flowery peak
Of this white cliff, high up in golden air,
Where glowing earth and sea and divine light
Are in mine eyes like ardour, and like love
Are in my soul: love's glowing gentleness,
The sunny grass of meadows and the trees,
Towers of dark green flame, and that white town
Where from the hearths, a fragrance of burnt wood,
Blue-purple smoke creeps like a stain of wine
Along the paved blue sea: yea, all this kindness
Lies amid salt immeasurable flowing,
The power of the sea, passion of love.
I, Sappho, have made love the mastery
Most sacred over man; but I have made it
A safety of things gloriously known,
To house his spirit from the darkness blowing
Out of the vast unknown: from me he hath
The wilful mind to make his fortune fair.
Yea, here I stand for the whole earth to see
How life, breathing its fortune like sweet air,
Mixing it with the kindled heart of man,
May utter it proud against the double truth
Of darkness fronting him and following him,
In a prevailing, burning, marvellous lie!
And it is love kindles the burning of it,
The quivering flame of spoken-forth desire,
Which man hath made his place within the world,--
Love, learnt of Sappho! and not only bright
With gladness: I have devised an endless pain,
The fearful spiritual pain of love, to hold
In a firm fire, unalterably bright,
The shining forth of Spirit's imagination
Declared against the investing dark, a light
Of pain and joy, equal for man and woman.

_The Third Vision: Theresa_.
Come, golden bridegroom, break this mortal night,
Five times chained with darkness of my senses.
At last now visit my desire, and turn
Thy feet, and the flaming path of thy feet,
Unto these walls lockt round me like a death.
Death I would have them till thou comest; yea,
The earthly stone whereof man's fortune here
Is made, strongly into deliberate death
I have built about my soul, to fend its life
From gazes of the world. I am too proud
To endure the world's desire of my beauty;
I know myself too marvellous in love
To be the joy of aught that thou hast made:
I am to be bride of thee, of the world's maker.
O God, the heart I have from thee, the heart
Uttering itself in an endless word of love,
Is sealed up in the stone of worl