| AH! Nature, would that I before I pass | |
| Might thrill with joy of thy communion | |
| One childlife only knowing thee from far! | |
| Love we may well, for surely one were nought | |
| Without the other, intermarrying breath; | 5 |
| Nature the systole, thought the diastole | |
| Of one Divine forever-beating Heart. | |
| Feeding from her maternal breast we grow | |
| Full to our height of stately dominance, | |
| And yet create, yea dower as we grow | 10 |
| Her with all colour, form and comeliness. | |
| Nature the heaving of a tender breast | |
| Revealing inspiration from within, | |
| Sweet rending of a calyx, telling clear | |
| Expansion of the spirit’s folded flower, | 15 |
| Nature the lake where looking long we fall | |
| With our own likeness tremulous in love. | |
| |
| And shall we climb, ascension infinite, | |
| From star to star? explore from world to world— | |
| Gods reigning yonder in the tranquil stars? | 20 |
| Death! what is Death? a turning-point of Life | |
| Winding so sharp the way dips out of sight, | |
| Seeming to end, yet winding on for ever | |
| Through teeming glories of the Infinite. | |
| Look with bold eyes unquailing in the face | 25 |
| Of that foul haunting phantom, it will fade, | |
| Melt to the face of some familiar friend.… 1 | |
| |
| One selfsame Spirit breathing evermore | |
| Rouses in each the momentary wave, | |
| One water and one motion and one wind, | 30 |
| Now feeble undulation myriadfold, | |
| Now headlong mountain thunder-clothed and crowned | |
| With foamy lightning; such we name Zerduscht, | |
| Dante, Spinoza, or Napoleon— | |
| The motion travels, and the wave subsides.… | 35 |
| |
| May cold ascetic hard, ill-favoured, crude, | |
| Ever persuade me vision and fond play | |
| Of sense about fair fleshly loveliness | |
| Of youth in man or woman is accurst— | |
| Since God hath made the spirit, but a fiend | 40 |
| Hath mocked it with a syren phantom-flesh?— | |
| Nay, to mine ear ’tis rankest blasphemy! | |
| For is not flesh the shadow of the soul, | |
| Her younger sister, both alike Divine? | |
| Yea verily! for when I love a friend | 45 |
| How may I sunder body from the soul? | |
| Few win my love, but they who win it seem | |
| Ever well-favoured to me, and I greet | |
| All comeliness of colour and of form, | |
| Mere side reverse of spiritual grace. | 50 |
| Yea, limbs well turned and bodies almond-smooth | |
| Full fair and white in maiden or in youth, | |
| With what sense-thrillings may attend on these; | |
| All lusty might of supple athletic men; | |
| Are surely worthy reverence like flowers, | 55 |
| Or like the culminating heart and soul. | |
| Only to each one yield his very own: | |
| Yield to young sense his toy of fantasy, | |
| And never frown until he glides to steal | |
| The royal sceptre from Intelligence, | 60 |
| Or crown of light from spiritual Love. | |
| Nor dare to maim lives infinite Divine | |
| Seeking to graft one pale monotonous flower; | |
| For is not Being thirsting to exhaust | |
| His all exhaustless capability? | 65 |
| Evil mere vantage-ground for an advance, | |
| If not for thee, yet for the universe, | |
| And so for thee as member of the whole. | |
