|
The Flame Dances
I am alive in an abyss of sand Gaunt mountains jar the sky on every hand To westward is the Lion in whose heart Venus herself takes an immortal part And eastward, glowing from that teatless dune Comes the presentiment of the full moon There is no wind abroad in this clear air Frost keys the spirit to exulting prayer Wrapt in my demons, patient as a star, I wait my lover by the lonely [?]sar. Each moment worthy of a choral name Each like a spark impatient to be flame Yet each inwoven to a period Of which the name can be but Love-of-God. The flame dances.
A single sentinel, a lone stern man, Guarding the gateways of the caravan An angel, bearing in his crystal hand The lance of lordship, seraph-white to stand Upon the pavement of chalcedony And hail the dawn of that [illegible] eye Whish opens when the Earth and heaven are rolled Back into blackness like a tale ill-told When God and all His universe are gone Like a false dream into oblivion So much I saw, though narrowed eyelids thrust, At that [illegible]-leaping of it sword of lust Where from the Sacred lance wherein it slept A moment, the white flame phantastic leapt. The flame dances.
Was there a breath? What Sin of the Suuth Shook him and prowled? What hungry heart and mouth Of what [illegible] sings, singing into song, Awoke the wind? So lucid and so long The white flame sword that I had never guessed Aught but aspiring ardour in its breast But here it shook, so langrous and lithe As I have seen a [illegible] leap and writhe As I have seen a serpent subtly suit Its rhythm to the black enchanters' lute As I have seen an Arab girl devise New wails for the actual mysteries. Her crissoid belly proving Allah good As all His [illegible] attest His [illegible] It shook, too tremulous and transient For man to mark its snaky sacrament And fell, a tragic lust cut cruelly short Ere I had whispered my immortal thought The flame dances.
|