II
Invoking not the worship of the crowd
As Hadrian divulged Antinous
Would I denote Thy sanctity, not thus
Should Love's deep litany be cried aloud.
There is a mountain set apart for us
Where I have hid Thy soul as in a cloud,
And there I dedicate as I have vowed
My secret voice,--all else were impious.
Remote and undiscovered, rest secure
Where I have set Thee up, that I may keep
My faith of God-in-Thee unblent and pure;
That I may be at one with Thee in sleep;
That waking as a mortal, I may leap
Into immortal dreams where love is sure.
III
And yet think not that I desire to seal
Your earthly beauty from the eyes of praise,
The Soul I worship hath its holy-days,
But being God is manifestly real.
The flesh resplendent in a lover's gaze
Hath too its triumph; the divine ideal
Is dual and can wonderfully reveal
Itself in dust enriched by subtle ways.
You are no shadow, for in you combine
Earth-music and a spirit's sanctity,
And both are exquisite, and both are mine...
For holier men a Beatrice, for me
The joyous sense of your reality,
Not half so saintly,--but far more divine.
IV
With the young god who out of death creates
The flame of life made manifest in spring,
Let us go forth at day's awakening,
The first to open wide the garden gates.
And resting where the blowing seasons sing,
Await the voice of god who consecrates
The pallid hands of the autumnal fates
That beckon from the dusk, dream-harvesting.
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