Classic Poem

Not by me these feet were led
To the path beside the wave,
Where the naiad lilies shed
Moonfire o'er a lonely grave.

Let the dragons of the past
In their caverns sleeping lie.
I am dream-betrayed, and cast
Into that old agony.

And an anguish of desire
Burns as in the sunken years,
And the soul sheds drops of fire
All unquenchable by tears.

I, who sought on high for calm,
In the Everliving find
All I was in what I am,
Fierce with gentle intertwined;

Hearts which I had crucified
With my heart that tortured them;
Penitence, unfallen pride —
These my thorny diadem!
'
Thou would'st ease in heaven thy pain,
Oh, thou fiery, bleeding thing!
All thy wounds will wake again
At the heaving of a wing.

All thy dead with thee shall rise,
Dies Irae . If the soul
To the Everliving flies,
There shall meet it at the goal

Love that Time had overlaid,
Deaths that we again must die —
Let the dragons we have made
In their caverns sleeping lie.