THROUGH the strait gate of passion,
Between the bickering
fire
Where flames
of fierce love tremble
On the body of fierce
desire:
To the intoxication,
The mind, fused down like a bead,
Flees in its
agitation
The
flames’ stiff speed:
At last to calm incandescence,
Burned clean by remorseless
hate,
Now, at the
day’s renascence
We approach the gate.
Now, from the darkened spaces
Of fear, and of frightened
faces,
Death, in
our awful embraces
Approached and passed by;
We near the flame-burnt porches
Where the brands of the
angels, like torches
Whirl, — in these perilous marches
Pausing to
sigh;
We look back on the withering roses,
The stars, in their
sun-dimmed closes,
Where ‘twas given us to repose us
Sure on our sanctity;
Beautiful, candid lovers,
Burnt out of our earthy covers,
We might have nestled like
plovers
In the
fields of eternity.
There, sure in sinless being,
All-seen, and then
all-seeing,
In us
life unto death agreeing,
We might have lain.
But we storm the angel-guarded
Gates of the
long-discarded,
Garden, which God has hoarded
Against our pain.
The Lord of Hosts, and the Devil
Are left on Eternity’s
level
Field, and
as victors we travel
To Eden home.
Back beyond good and evil
Return we. Eve dishevel
Your hair for the
bliss-drenched revel
On our primal loam.