a transcription from page 71

 

Consolation of Dust

1

                            If I have followed thee across the seas,

                                    And kissed the mountains, thy rich-swelling breast,

                           And loved thy hair the clouds, thy breath the breeze

                                  Thy body the dark East, thy soul the West;

 

2

 

                          If in the ragged Eden of my mind,

                                 Thy golden light has shattered all the lust;

                          If in a woman, in a book, a friend,

                                 I have pursued thee through the dark & dust

 

3

 

                        Most vivid, O most brilliant, most divine,

                                 Love, virtue, light, and art, and all my toil,

                        Oh earth of beauty, wilt thou then be mine

                                 And lift me from thyself and from thy soil?

 

4

 

                     ...Then I will die thy lover, cruel god!;

                               But in thy dazed and self-reflective ease,

                     Thou still must hear a dust beneath thy sod

                               Living thy passionless eternities.

 

 

                                                                                    July 13

 

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