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,