And, priest of a bright brotherhood, performed the mystic sacrifice,
At Love's high altar fit to stand, with fire and incense aureoled,

The celebrant in cloth of gold with Spring and Youth on either hand.
III

Choral Song
Have ye gazed on its grandeur

Or stood where it stands
With opal and amber

Adorning the lands,
And orcharded domes

Of the hue of all flowers?
Sweet melody roams

Through its blossoming bowers,
Sweet bells usher in from its belfries the train of the honey-sweet hour.

A city resplendent,
Fulfilled of good things,

On its ramparts are pendent
The bucklers of kings.

Broad banners unfurled
Are afloat in its air.

The lords of the world
Look for harborage there.

None finds save he comes as a bridegroom, having roses and vine in his hair.
'Tis the city of Lovers,

There many paths meet.
Blessed he above others,

With faltering feet,
Who past its proud spires

Intends not nor hears
The noise of its lyres

Grow faint in his ears!
Men reach it through portals of triumph, but leave through a postern of tears.

It was thither, ambitious,
We came for Youth's right,

When our lips yearned for kisses
As moths for the light,

When our souls cried for Love
As for life-giving rain

Wan leaves of the grove,
Withered grass of the plain,

And our flesh ached for Love-flesh beside it with bitter, intolerable pain.
Under arbor and trellis,

Full of flutes, full of flowers,
What mad fortunes befell us,

What glad orgies were ours!
In the days of our youth,

In our festal attire,
When the sweet flesh was smooth,

When the swift blood was fire,
And all Earth paid in orange and purple to pavilion the bed of Desire!

The Sultan's Palace
My spirit only lived to look on Beauty's face,

As only when they clasp the arms seem served aright;
As in their flesh inheres the impulse to embrace,

To gaze on Loveliness was my soul's appetite.
I have roamed far in search; white road and plunging bow

Were keys in the blue doors where my desire was set;
Obedient to their lure, my lips and laughing brow

The hill-showers and the spray of many seas have wet.
Hot are enamored hands, the fragrant zone unbound,

To leave no dear delight unfelt, unfondled o'er,
The will possessed my heart to girdle Earth around

With their insatiate need to wonder and adore.
The flowers in the fields, the surf upon the sands,

The sunset and the clouds it turned to blood and wine,
Were shreds of the thin veil behind whose beaded strands

A radiantvisage rose, serene, august, divine.
A noise of summer wind astir in starlit trees,

A song where sensual love's delirium rose and fell,
Were rites that moved my soul more than the devotee's

When from the blazing choir rings out the altar bell.
I woke amid the pomp of a proud palace; writ

In tinted arabesque on walls that gems o'erlay,
The names of caliphs were who once held court in it,

Their baths and bowers were mine to dwell in for a day.
Their robes and rings were mine to draw from shimmering trays --

Brocades and broidered silks, topaz and tourmaline --
Their turban-cloths to wind in proud capricious ways,

And fasten plumes and pearls and pendent sapphires in.
I rose; far music drew my steps in fond pursuit

Down tessellated floors and towering peristyles:
Through groves of colonnades fair lamps were blushing fruit,

On seas of green mosaic soft rugs were flowery isles.
And there were verdurous courts that scalloped arches wreathed,

Where fountains plashed in bowls of lapis lazuli.
Through enigmatic doors voluptuous accents breathed,

And having Youth I had their Open Sesame.
I paused where shadowy walls were hung with cloths of gold,

And tinted twilight streamed through storied panes above.
In lamplit alcoves deep as flowers when they unfold

Soft cushions called to rest and fragrant fumes to love.
I hungered; at my hand delicious dainties teemed --

Fair pyramids of fruit; pastry in sugared piles.
I thirsted; in cool cups inviting vintage beamed --

Sweet syrups from the South; brown muscat from the isles.
I yearned for passionate Love; faint gauzes fell away.

Pillowed in rosy light I found my heart's desire.
Over the silks and down her florid beauty lay,

As over orient clouds the sunset's coral fire.
Joys that had smiled afar, a visionary form,

Behind the ranges hid, remote and rainbow-dyed,
Drew near unto my heart, a wonder soft and warm,

To touch, to stroke, to clasp, to sleep and wake beside.
Joy, that where summer seas and hot horizons shone

Had been the outspread arms I gave my youth to seek,
Drew near; awhile its pulse strovesweetly with my own,

Awhile I felt its breath astir upon my cheek.
I was so happy there; so fleeting was my stay, --

What wonder if, assailed with vistas so divine,
I only lived to search and sample them the day

When between dawn and dusk the sultan's courts were mine!
Speak not of other worlds of happiness to be,

As though in any fond imaginary sphere
Lay more to tempt man's soul to immortality

Than ripens for his bliss abundant now and here!
Flowerlike I hope to die as flowerlike was my birth.

Rooted in Nature's just benignant law like them,
I want no better joys than those that from green Earth

My spirit's blossom drew through the sweet body's stem.
I see no dread in death, no horror to abhor.

I never thought it else than but to cease to dwell
Spectator, and resolve most naturally once more

Into the dearly loved eternal spectacle.
Unto the fields and flowers this flesh I found so fair

I yield; do you, dear friend, over your rose-crowned wine,
Murmur my name some day as though my lips were there,

And frame your mouth as though its blushing kiss were mine.
Yea, where the banquet-hall is brilliant with young men,