Wherein new scenes of wonder rare Are imaged, till the sense deceives Itself, and what it sees believes— Even what the soul has pictured there? CHAGRIN Caught still as Absalom, Surely the air hangs From the swayless cloud-boughs Like hair of Absalom Caught and hanging still. From the imagined weight Of spaces in a sky Of mute chagrin my thoughts Hang like branch-clung hair To trunks of silence swung, With the choked soul weighing down Into thick emptiness. Christ, end this hanging death, For endlessness hangs therefrom! Invisibly branches break From invisible trees: The cloud-woods where we rush (Our eyes holding so much), Which we must ride dim ages round Ere the hands (we dream) can touch, We ride, we ride—before the morning The secret roots of the sun to tread— And suddenly We are lifted of all we know, And hang from implacable boughs. THE BLIND GOD Streaked with immortal blasphemies, Betwixt His twin eternities The Shaper of mortal destinies Sits in that limbo of dreamless sleep, Some nothing that hath shadows deep. The world is only a small pool In the meadows of Eternity, And men like fishes lying cool; And the wise man and the fool In its depths like fishes lie. When an angel drops a rod And he draws you to the sky Will you bear to meet your God You have streaked with blasphemy? THE FEMALE GOD We curl into your eyes— They drink our fires and have never drained; In the fierce forest of your hair Our desires beat blindly for their treasure. In your eyes’ subtle pit, Far down, glimmer our souls; And your hair like massive forest trees Shadows our pulses, overtired and dumb. Like a candle lost in an electric glare Our spirits tread your eyes’ infinities; In the wrecking waves of your tumultuous locks Do you not hear the moaning of our pulses? Queen! Goddess! Animal! In sleep do your dreams battle with our souls? When your hair is spread like a lover on the pillow Do not our jealous pulses wake between?