heard.

The miracle that gave them such a death
Transfigured to pure substance what had once

Been bone and sinew; when such bodies join
There is no touching here, nor touching there,

Nor straining joy, but whole is joined to whole;
For the intercourse of angels is a light

Where for its moment both seem lost, consumed.
Here in the pitch-dark atmosphere above

The trembling of the apple and the yew,
Here on the anniversary of their death,

The anniversary of their first embrace,
Those lovers, purified by tragedy,

Hurry into each other's arms; these eyes,
By water, herb and solitary prayer

Made aquiline, are open to that light.
Though somewhat broken by the leaves, that light

Lies in a circle on the grass; therein
I turn the pages of my holy book.

II
i{Ribb denounces Patrick}

An abstract Greek absurdity has crazed the man --
Recall that masculine Trinity. Man, woman, child (a

daughter or a son),
That's how all natural or supernatural stories run.

Natural and supernatural with the self-same ring are
wed.

As man, as beast, as an ephemeral fly begets, Godhead
begets Godhead,

For things below are copies, the Great Smaragdine
Tablet said.

Yet all must copy copies, all increase their kind;
When the conflagration of their passion sinks, damped

by the body or the mind,
That juggling nature mounts, her coil in their em-

braces twined.
The mirror-scaled serpent is multiplicity,

But all that run in couples, on earth, in flood or air,
share God that is but three,

And could beget or bear themselves could they but
love as He.

III
i{Ribb in Ecstasy}

What matter that you understood no word!
Doubtless I spoke or sang what I had heard

In broken sentences. My soul had found
All happiness in its own cause or ground.

Godhead on Godhead in sexual spasm begot
Godhead. Some shadow fell. My soul forgot

Those amorous cries that out of quiet come
And must the common round of day resume.

IV
i{There}

There all the barrel-hoops are knit,
There all the serpent-tails are bit,

There all the gyres converge in one,
There all the planets drop in the Sun.

V
i{Ribb considers Christian Love insufficient}

Why should I seek for love or study it?
It is of God and passes human wit.

I study hatred with great diligence,
For that's a passion in my own control,

A sort of besom that can clear the soul
Of everything that is not mind or sense.

Why do I hate man, woman Or event?
That is a light my jealous soul has sent.

From terror and deception freed it can
Discover impurities, can show at last

How soul may walk when all such things are past,
How soul could walk before such things began.

Then my delivered soul herself shall learn
A darker knowledge and in hatred turn

From every thought of God mankind has had.
Thought is a garment and the soul's a bride

That cannot in that trash and tinsel hide:
Hatred of God may bring the soul to God.

At stroke of midnight soul cannot endure
A bodily or mental furniture.

What can she take until her Master give!
Where can she look until He make the show!

What can she know until He bid her know!
How can she live till in her blood He live!

VI
i{He and She}

As the moon sidles up
Must she sidle up,

As trips the scared moon
Away must she trip:

"His light had struck me blind
Dared I stop'.

She sings as the moon sings:
"I am I, am I;

The greater grows my light
The further that I fly'.

All creation shivers
With that sweet cry

VII
i{What Magic Drum?}

He holds him from desire, all but stops his breathing
lest

primordial Motherhood forsake his limbs, the child no
longer rest,

Drinking joy as it were milk upon his breast.
Through light-obliterating garden foliage what magic

drum?
Down limb and breast or down that glimmering belly

move his mouth and sinewy tongue.
What from the forest came? What beast has licked its

young?
VIII

i{Whence had they come?}
Eternity is passion, girl or boy

Cry at the onset of their sexual joy
"For ever and for ever'; then awake

Ignorant what Dramatis personae spake;
A passion-driven exultant man sings out

Sentences that he has never thought;
The Flagellant lashes those submissive loins

Ignorant what that dramatist enjoins,
What master made the lash. Whence had they come,

The hand and lash that beat down frigid Rome?
What sacred drama through her body heaved

When world-transforming Charlemagne was con-
ceived?

IX
i{The Four Ages of Man}

He with body waged a fight,
But body won; it walks upright.

Then he struggled with the heart;
Innocence and peace depart.

Then he struggled with the mind;
His proud heart he left behind.

Now his wars on God begin;
At stroke of midnight God shall win.

X
i{Conjunctions}

If Jupiter and Saturn meet,
What a cop of mummy wheat!

The sword's a cross; thereon He died:
On breast of Mars the goddess sighed.

XI
i{A Needle's Eye}

All the stream that's roaring by
Came out of a needle's eye;

Things unborn, things that are gone,
From needle's eye still goad it on.

XII
i{Meru}

Civilisation is hooped together, brought
Under a mle, under the semblance of peace

By manifoldillusion; but man's life is thought,
And he, despite his terror, cannot cease

Ravening through century after century,
Ravening, raging, and uprooting that he may come

Into the desolation of reality:
Egypt and Greece, good-bye, and good-bye, Rome!

Hermits upon Mount Meru or Everest,
Caverned in night under the drifted snow,

Or where that snow and winter's dreadful blast
Beat down upon their naked bodies, know

That day brings round the night, that before dawn
His glory and his monuments are gone.

SWIFT'S EPITAPH
SWIFT has sailed into his rest;

Savage indignation there
Cannot lacerate his breast.

Imitate him if you dare,
World-besotted traveller; he

Served human liberty.
THAT THE NIGHT COME

SHE lived in storm and strife,
Her soul had such desire

For what proud death may bring
That it could not endure

The common good of life,
But lived as 'twere a king

That packed his marriage day
With banneret and pennon,

Trumpet and kettledrum,
And the outrageous cannon,

To bundle time away
That the night come.

THE BLESSED
CUMHAL called out, bending his head,

Till Dathi came and stood,
With a blink in his eyes, at the cave-mouth,

Between the wind and the wood.
And Cumhal said, bending his knees,

"I have come by the windy way
And learn to pray when you pray.

"I can bring you salmon out of the streams
And heron out of the skies."

But Dathi folded his hands and smiled
With the secrets of God in his eyes.

And Cumhal saw like a drifting smoke
All manner of blessed souls,

Women and children, young men with books,
And old men with croziers and stoles.

"praise God and God's Mother,' Dathi said,
"For God and God's Mother have sent

• miracle [´mirəkl] n.奇迹；令人惊奇的 (初中英语单词)
• atmosphere [´ætməsfiə] n.大气；空气；气氛 (初中英语单词)
• circle [´sə:kəl] n.圆圈 v.环绕；盘旋 (初中英语单词)
• passion [´pæʃən] n.激情；激怒；恋爱 (初中英语单词)
• hatred [´heitrid] n.憎恨，敌意 (初中英语单词)
• jealous [´dʒeləs] a.妒忌的 (初中英语单词)
• terror [´terə] n.恐怖；惊骇 (初中英语单词)
• garment [´gɑ:mənt] n.衣服，外衣 (初中英语单词)
• midnight [´midnait] n.午夜；漆黑 (初中英语单词)
• mental [´mentl] a.精神的；心理的 (初中英语单词)
• creation [kri´eiʃən] n.创作；作品；创造 (初中英语单词)
• sacred [´seikrid] a.神圣的；庄严的 (初中英语单词)
• jupiter [´dʒu:pitə] n.朱庇特；木星 (初中英语单词)
• goddess [´gɔdis] n.女神 (初中英语单词)
• stream [stri:m] n.河 vi.流出；飘扬 (初中英语单词)
• despite [di´spait] prep.尽管 (初中英语单词)
• greece [gri:s] n.希腊 (初中英语单词)
• dreadful [´dredful] a.可怕的；讨厌的 (初中英语单词)
• bundle [´bʌndl] n.包，捆；包袱(裹) (初中英语单词)
• solitary [´sɔlitəri] a.独居的；孤独的 (高中英语单词)
• serpent [´sə:pənt] n.大毒蛇；阴险的人 (高中英语单词)
• foliage [´fəuli-idʒ] n.叶子，簇叶 (高中英语单词)
• illusion [i´lu:ʒən] n.幻觉；幻影；错觉 (高中英语单词)
• indignation [,indig´neiʃən] n.愤慨；气愤 (高中英语单词)
• salmon [´sæmən] n.鲑，大马哈鱼 (高中英语单词)
• touching [´tʌtʃiŋ] a.动人的 prep.提到 (英语四级单词)
• intercourse [´intəkɔ:s] n.交际；往来；交流 (英语四级单词)
• anniversary [,æni´və:səri] n.周年纪念(日) (英语四级单词)
• abstract [´æbstrækt] a.抽象的 n.提要 (英语四级单词)
• absurdity [əb´sə:diti] n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论 (英语四级单词)
• masculine [´mæ:skjulin] a.男性的 n.男子 (英语四级单词)
• bodily [´bɔdili] a.身体的 ad.亲自 (英语四级单词)
• forsake [fə´seik] vt.遗弃，抛弃，摒绝 (英语四级单词)
• whence [wens] ad.从何处；从那里 (英语四级单词)
• saturn [´sætən, -ərn] n.农神 (英语四级单词)
• semblance [´sembləns] n.外表；伪装；相似 (英语四级单词)
• manifold [´mænifəuld] a.多样的；多种特征的 (英语四级单词)
• desolation [desə´leiʃ(ə)n] n.荒凉 (英语四级单词)
• blessed [´blesid] a.享福的；神圣的 (英语四级单词)
• trinity [´triniti] n.三个一组 (英语六级单词)
• sexual [´sekʃuəl] a.性(欲)的 (英语六级单词)
• deception [di´sepʃən] n.欺骗，诈骗；骗术 (英语六级单词)
• dramatist [´dræmətist] n.剧作家；戏曲家 (英语六级单词)
• unborn [,ʌn´bɔ:n] a.未生的；将来的 (英语六级单词)
• outrageous [aut´reidʒəs] a.横蛮的；残暴的 (英语六级单词)