The Nuts of Knowledge | Page 2

desire which cast them in the deep
Called
God too from his sleep.
O, pity, only seer, who looking through
A
heart melted like dew,
Seest the long perished in the present thus,

For ever dwell in us.
Whatever time thy golden eyelids ope
They
travel to a hope;
Not only backward from these low degrees
To
starry dynasties,
But, looking far where now the silence owns
And
rules from empty thrones,
Thou seest the enchanted halls of heaven
burn
For joy at our return.
Thy tender kiss hath memory we are
kings
For all our wanderings.
Thy shining eyes already see the after

In hidden light and laughter.
THE BURNING GLASS
A shaft of fire that falls like dew,
And melts and maddens all my
blood,
From out thy spirit flashes through
The burning glass of
womanhood.
Only so far; here must I stay:
Nearer I miss the light, the fire:
I must
endure the torturing ray,
And, with all beauty, all desire.
Ah, time-long must the effort be,
And far the way that I must go
To
bring my spirit unto thee,

Behind the glass, within the glow.

A VISION OF BEAUTY
Where we sat at dawn together, while the star-rich heavens shifted, We
were weaving dreams in silence, suddenly the veil was lifted. By a
hand of fire awakened, in a moment caught and led
Upward to the
wondrous vision: through the star-mists overhead Flare and flaunt the
monstrous highlands; on the sapphire coast of night Fall the ghostly
froth and fringes of the ocean of the light. Many coloured shine the
vapours: to the moon-eye far away 'Tis the fairy ring of twilight mid
the spheres of night and day, Girdling with a rainbow cincture round
the planet where we go, We and it together fleeting, poised upon the
pearl glow; We and it and all together flashing through the starry
spaces In a tempest dream of beauty lighting up the place of places.
Half our eyes behold the glory: half within the spirit's glow Echoes of
the noiseless revels and the will of beauty go. By a hand of fire
uplifted--to her star-strewn palace brought, To the mystic heart of
beauty and the secret of her thought: Here of yore the ancient mother in
the fire mists sank to rest, And she built her dreams about her, rayed
from out her burning breast: Here the wild will woke within her
lighting up her flying dreams, Round and round the planets whirling
break in woods and flowers and streams, And the winds are shaken
from them as the leaves from off the rose, And the feet of earth go
dancing in the way that beauty goes, And the souls of earth are kindled
by the incense of her breath As her light alternate lures them through
the gates of birth and death. O'er the fields of space together following
her flying traces, In a radiant tumult thronging, suns and stars and
myriad races Mount the spirit spires of beauty, reaching onward to the
day When the Shepherd of the Ages draws his misty hordes away
Through the glimmering deeps to silence, and within the awful fold
Life and joy and love forever vanish as a tale is told, Lost within the
mother's being. So the vision flamed and fled, And before the glory
fallen every other dream lay dead.
REST
On me to rest, my bird, my bird:
The swaying branches of my heart

Are blown by every wind toward
The home whereto their wings

depart.
Build not your nest, my bird, on me:
I know no peace but ever sway:

O, lovely bird, be free, be free,
On the wild music of the day.
But sometimes when your wings would rest,
And winds are laid on
quiet eves:
Come, I will bear you breast to breast,
And lap you
close with loving leaves.
THE EARTH BREATH
From the cool and dark-lipped furrow breathes a dim delight Through
the woodland's purple plumage to the diamond night. Aureoles of joy
encircle every blade of grass
Where the dew-fed creatures silent and
enraptured pass. And the restless ploughman pauses, turns, and
wondering, Deep beneath his rustic habit finds himself a king;
For a
fiery moment looking with the eyes of God
Over fields a slave at
morning bowed him to the sod.
Blind and dense with revelation every
moment flies.
And unto the mighty mother, gay, eternal, rise
All the
hopes we hold, the gladness, dreams of things to be. One of all thy
generations, mother, hails to thee.
Hail, and hail, and hail for ever,
though I turn again
From thy joy unto the human vestiture of pain.
I,
thy child who went forth radiant in the golden prime, Find thee still the
mother-hearted through my night in time: Find in thee the old
enchantment there behind the veil
Where the gods, my brothers,
linger. Hail, for ever hail!
DIVINE VISITATION
The heavens lay hold on us: the starry rays
Fondle with flickering
fingers brow and eyes:
A new enchantment lights the ancient skies.

What is it looks