IX. DELICIAE SAPIENTIAE DE AMORE.

Love, light for me

Thy ruddiest blazing torch,

That I, albeit a beggar by the Porch

Of the glad Palace of Virginity,

May gaze within, and sing the pomp I see;

For, crown'd with roses all,

‘ Tis there, O Love, they keep thy festival!

But first warn off the beatific spot

Those wretched who have not

Even afar beheld the shining wall,

And those who, once beholding, have forgot,

And those, most vile, who dress

The charnel spectre drear

Of utterly dishallow'd nothingness

In that refulgent fame,

And cry, Lo, here!

And name

The Lady whose smiles inflame

The sphere.

Bring, Love, anear,

And bid be not afraid

Young Lover true, and love-foreboding Maid,

And wedded Spouse, if virginal of thought;

For I will sing of nought

Less sweet to hear

Than seems

A music in their half-remember'd dreams.

The magnet calls the steel:

Answers the iron to the magnet's breath;

What do they feel

But death!

The clouds of summer kiss in flame and rain,

And are not found again;

But the heavens themselves eternal are with fire

Of unapproach'd desire,

By the aching heart of Love, which cannot rest,

In blissfullest pathos so indeed possess'd.

O, spousals high;

O, doctrine blest,

Unutterable in even the happiest sigh;

This know ye all

Who can recall

With what a welling of indignant tears

Love's simpleness first hears

The meaning of his mortal covenant,

And from what pride comes down

To wear the crown

Of which‘ twas very heaven to feel the want.

How envies he the ways

Of yonder hopeless star,

And so would laugh and yearn

With trembling lids eterne,

Ineffably content from infinitely far

Only to gaze

On his bright Mistress's responding rays,

That never know eclipse;

And, once in his long year,

With praeternuptial ecstasy and fear,

By the delicious law of that ellipse

Wherein all citizens of ether move,

With hastening pace to come

Nearer, though never near,

His Love

And always inaccessible sweet Home;

There on his path doubly to burn.

Kiss'd by her doubled light

That whispers of its source,

The ardent secret ever clothed with Night,

Then go forth in new force

Towards a new return,

Rejoicing as a Bridegroom on his course!

This know ye all;

Therefore gaze bold,

That so in you be joyful hope increas'd,

Thorough the Palace portals, and behold

The dainty and unsating Marriage-Feast.

O, hear

Them singing clear

‘ Cor meum et caro mea’ round the‘ I am,’

The Husband of the Heavens, and the Lamb

Whom they for ever follow there that kept,

Or losing, never slept

Till they reconquer'd had in mortal fight

The standard white.

O, hear

From the harps they bore from Earth, five-strung, what music springs,

While the glad Spirits chide

The wondering strings!

And how the shining sacrificial Choirs,

Offering for aye their dearest hearts’ desires,

Which to their hearts come back beatified,

Hymn, the bright aisles along,

The nuptial song,

Song ever new to us and them, that saith,

‘ Hail Virgin in Virginity a Spouse!’

Heard first below

Within the little house

At Nazareth;

Heard yet in many a cell where brides of Christ

Lie hid, emparadised,

And where, although

By the hour‘ tis night,

There's light,

The Day still lingering in the lap of snow.

Gaze and be not afraid

Ye wedded few that honour, in sweet thought

And glittering will,

So freshly from the garden gather still

The lily sacrificed;

For ye, though self-suspected here for nought,

Are highly styled

With the thousands twelve times twelve of undefiled.

Gaze and be not afraid

Young Lover true and love-foreboding Maid.

The full noon of deific vision bright

Abashes nor abates

No spark minute of Nature's keen delight.

‘ Tis there your Hymen waits!

There where in courts afar, all unconfused, they crowd,

As fumes the starlight soft

In gulfs of cloud,

And each to the other, well-content,

Sighs oft,

‘'Twas this we meant!’

Gaze without blame

Ye in whom living Love yet blushes for dead shame.

There of pure Virgins none

Is fairer seen,

Save One,

Than Mary Magdalene.

Gaze without doubt or fear

Ye to whom generous Love, by any name, is dear.

Love makes the life to be

A fount perpetual of virginity;

For, lo, the Elect

Of generous Love, how named soe'er, affect

Nothing but God,

Or mediate or direct,

Nothing but God,

The Husband of the Heavens:

And who Him love, in potence great or small,

Are, one and all,

Heirs of the Palace glad,

And inly clad

With the bridal robes of ardour virginal.