As, when a shower of meteors
Cross the orbit of the earth,
And, lit by fringent air,
Blaze near and far,

Mortals deem the planets bright
Have slipped their sacred bars,
And the lone seaman all the night
Sails, astonished, amid stars.

Beauty of a richer vein,
Graces of a subtler strain,
Unto men these moonmen lend,
And our shrinking sky extend.
So is man's narrow path
By strength and terror skirted;
Also (from the song the wrath
Of the Genii be averted!

The Muse the truth uncolored speaking)

The Dæmons are self-seeking:

Their fierce and limitary will

Draws men to their likeness still.

The erring painter made Love blind,-
Highest Love who shines on all;
Him, radiant, sharpest-sighted god,
None can bewilder;

Whose eyes pierce

The universe,

Path-finder, road-builder,

Mediator, royal giver ;

Rightly seeing, rightly seen,

Of joyful and transparent mien.

'T is a sparkle passing

From each to each, from thee to me,

To and fro perpetually;

Sharing all, daring all,

Levelling, displacing

Each obstruction, it unites

Equals remote, and seeming opposites.

And ever and forever Love

Delights to build a road:

Unheeded Danger near him strides,
Love laughs, and on a lion rides.
But Cupid wears another face,

Born into Dæmons less divine:
His roses bleach apace,

His nectar smacks of wine.
The Dæmon ever builds a wall,
Himself encloses and includes,
Solitude in solitudes :

In like sort his love doth fall.'

He doth elect

The beautiful and fortunate,
And the sons of intellect,
And the souls of ample fate,
Who the Future's gates unbar,-
Minions of the Morning Star.
In his prowess he exults,

And the multitude insults.

His impatient looks devour
Oft the humble and the poor;
And, seeing his eye glare,

-

They drop their few pale flowers,
Gathered with hope to please,
Along the mountain towers,
Lose courage, and despair.
He will never be gainsaid,
Pitiless, will not be stayed;
His hot tyranny

Burns up every other tie.

Therefore comes an hour from Jove

Which his ruthless will defies,

And the dogs of Fate unties.

Shiver the palaces of glass;

Shrivel the rainbow-colored walls,

Where in bright Art each god and sibyl dwelt

Secure as in the zodiac's belt ;

And the galleries and halls,

Wherein every siren sung,
Like a meteor pass.

For this fortune wanted root

In the core of God's abysm, -
Was a weed of self and schism;
And ever the Dæmonic Love

Is the ancestor of wars

And the parent of remorse.

IX

III

THE CELESTIAL LOVE

BUT God said,

I will have a purer gift;

There is smoke in the flame;

New flowerets bring, new prayers uplift

And love without a name.

Fond children, ye desire

To please each other well;

Another round, a higher,

Ye shall climb on the heavenly stair,

And selfish preference forbear;
And in right deserving,

And without a swerving

Each from your proper state,

Weave roses for your mate.

'Deep, deep are loving eyes,

Flowed with naphtha fiery sweet;

And the point is paradise,

Where their glances meet:

Their reach shall yet be more profound,

And a vision without bound:

The axis of those eyes sun-clear

Be the axis of the sphere:

So shall the lights ye pour amain
Go, without check or intervals,
Through from the empyrean walls
Unto the same again.'

Higher far into the pure realm,
Over sun and star,

Over the flickering Dæmon film,
Thou must mount for love;
Into vision where all form
In one only form dissolves;
In a region where the wheel
On which all beings ride
Visibly revolves;

Where the starred, eternal worm

Girds the world with bound and term;

Where unlike things are like;

Where good and ill,

And joy and moan,

Melt into one.

There Past, Present, Future, shoot
Triple blossoms from one root;
Substances at base divided,
In their summits are united;
There the holy essence rolls,
One through separated souls;
And the sunny Æon sleeps
Folding Nature in its deeps,