Classic Poem

PART II

With fires bedight that magic sprite
Leaped upon my back to ride.
He was a creature fierce and bright.
He struck his spurs into my side.

" Oh leave me to my mortal mirth!
I am afraid of that bright spirit.
I am too young to quit this earth.
Nay, let me this sweet earth inherit.
" If I should gaze upon her face
A fearful change on me would come.
Then I should be estranged with grace,
An alien in my home.

" When at the hearth I drive my loom
And my love gazes in my eyes,
He will see powers and thrones and doom
And suns and stars and ancient skies.

" Then, when he reaches for my hands,
No smallness will he comfort there,
But he will touch the seas, the lands,
The seasons and the throbbing air.

" When from her splendor I return
And in the flesh dwell once again,
Too mystic warm my heart shall burn
To please the hearts of men.

" Unearthly bright my brow would gleam
To them that hate all brightness still.
My laughing calm to them would seem
Like snow upon a hill.

" They would resent my high emprise,
My haunted speech, my echoing mien.
I could not shake from out mine eyes
The visions they had seen.

" I should be charged with errands high,
Strange roads should bind my speeding feet.
Then I should be a voice, a cry,
A portent in the street.

" I fear her call. I fear her face.
I fear the silent, shining change.
They will stone me in the market place
For uttering lovely things and strange!

" But oh, not they, with living whips,
Shall scourge from me my folded wings,
Nor burn with flames from off my lips
Murmurs of dread ecstatic things.

" But yet, abhorring when I go
With gracious gifts, sweet as the sky,
They in the dust will lay me low,
And at the last will crucify.

" Lord, let me keep these eyes that weep,
This heart that breaks, these wounds to bind,
These limbs that leap, that dance, that sleep,
And nearness to my kind! "

He laughed aloud, as in a cloud
A meteor beats and clings.
So in my thought his voice was wrought.
He flashed his bright, melodious wings.

" Too late! Too late! Thou canst not choose.
She calls thee from Her radiant spheres.
What thou dost now with tears refuse
To-night thou shalt beseech with tears.

" For thou must come to Her with blood,
Purged brightly clean with mightiest grief,
With chastened longing and a mood
Humble beyond belief.

" I'll show thee many an empty sight.
Through many a void shalt thou run,
Until thou wailest for the light
In the city of the sun.

" Until, deep panting for the light,
Thou layest down thy mortal nature.
Then shalt thou be transformed and bright,
Eternal and angelic creature. "