I have loved Nature, love her now: and woman Is Nature, and my love for nature means Inclusion of the sex. I have not soared To heights that sickened me and made me laugh At what I sought--or turned from it. No moons Behind the clouds; no terrors and no symbols, No Emilia Vivianni's have I had. I know, believe me, love for woman calls A man's soul up to heights too rare to live in. I have not risen, therefore, will not rise Where thinking stops, because the blood leaves brain Therefore have had no falls, and no recoils Chasing the Plato vision, the star, the wonder, The beauty and the terror, harmony Of nature's art; the passion that would make The loved one of the self-same womb with me, A sister, spouse or angel, dæmon, pilot Of life and fate. How much of truth is here? Dreams seen most vividly by Petrarch, Dante, Who loved without achievement, balking nature, Till Passion, like an involute, pressed in Harder and harder on its starving leaves, Becomes a fragrance--sublimate of self Sucked out of sorrow's earth, at last becomes A meditative madness. All is written Fairly across my page. "She walks in beauty:" "When we two parted," "Could love like a river," "Bright be the place of thy soul." Lines, lines In "Harold," "Don Juan." Yes, I have loved, But saw how far love lures, how far to venture, Knowing what can and what cannot be made Of the mystery, the wonder, therefore never Have had to laugh at self; find Vivianni A housemaid shelling corn--not threading pearls. Or sit, with idiot eyes, my bones half broken, Icarus bumped amid a field of stones. I know the hour of farewell. I have said it When my heart trembled, stopped as when a horse Braces its terrored feet to keep from plunging Over the precipice. Farewell! Farewell! I know to say, and turn, and pass my way. Why! For that matter, even now behold! Do I feel less than Shelley would in this? I leave the Countess for the war in Greece. What's done is done. What's lived is lived. Come, Doctor, Let's practice with the pistols. Mother of God, What is this thing called Life? THE FOLDING MIRROR A folding mirror! What may it be? Nothing? Or something? Let me see! Its silver chain is hung to the sky On a planet nail. And it fronts my eye. No stars reflect themselves at first, The mirrors are dustless, vacant and clean. Not even my face shows--am I cursed? What may the mirrors mean? * * * * *