我因为我们爱情的电流通过ugh the slow welter of the primal flood From some blind source of monster-haunted mud, And flung together by random forces stored Ere the vast void with rushing worlds was scored? Because we know ourselves but the dim scud Tossed from their heedless keels, the sea-blown bud That wastes and scatters ere the wave has roared? Because we have this knowledge in our veins, Shall we deny the journey?s gathered lore? The great refusals and the long disdains, The stubborn questing for a phantom shore, The sleepless hopes and memorable pains, And all mortality?s immortal gains? II Because our kiss is as the moon to draw The mounting waters of that red-lit sea That circles brain with sense, and bids us be The playthings of an elemental law, Shall we forego the deeper touch of awe On love?s extremest pinnacle, where we, Winging the vistas of infinity, Gigantic on the mist our shadows saw? Shall kinship with the dim first-moving clod Not draw the folded pinion from the soul, And shall we not, by spirals vision-trod, Reach upward to some still-retreating goal, As earth, escaping from the night?s control, Drinks at the founts of morning like a god? III All, all is sweet in that commingled draught Mysterious, that life pours for lovers? thirst, And I would meet your passion as the first Wild woodland woman met her captor?s craft, Or as the Greek whose fearless beauty laughed And doffed her raiment by the Attic flood; But in the streams of my belated blood Flow all the warring potions love has quaffed. How can I be to you the nymph who danced Smooth by Ilissus as the plane-tree?s bole, Or how the Nereid whose drenched lashes glanced Like sea-flowers through the summer sea?s long roll? I that have also been the nun entranced Who night-long held her Bridegroom in her soul? IV ?Sad Immortality is dead,? you say, ?And all her grey brood banished from the soul; Life, like the earth, is now a rounded whole, The orb of man?s dominion. Live to-day.? And every sense in me leapt to obey, Seeing the routed phantoms backward roll; But from their waning throng a whisper stole, And touched the morning splendour with decay. ?Sad Immortality is dead; and we The funeral train that bear her to her grave. Yet hath she left a two-faced progeny In hearts of men, and some will always see The skull beneath the wreath, yet always crave In every kiss the folded kiss to be.? V Yet for one rounded moment I will be No more to you than what my lips may give, And in the circle of your kisses live As in some island of a storm-blown sea, Where the cold surges of infinity Upon the outward reefs unheeded grieve, And the loud murmur of our blood shall weave Primeval silences round you and me. If in that moment we are all we are We live enough. Let this for all requite. Do I not know, some winged things from far Are borne along illimitable night To dance their lives out in a single flight Between the moonrise and the setting star? VI The Moment came, with sacramental cup Lifted?and all the vault of life grew bright With tides of incommensurable light? But tremblingly I turned and covered up My face before the wonder. Down the slope I heard her feet in irretrievable flight, And when I looked again, my stricken sight Saw night and rain in a dead world agrope. Now walks her ghost beside me, whispering With lips derisive: ?Thou that wouldst forego? What god assured thee that the cup I bring Globes not in every drop the cosmic show, All that the insatiate heart of man can wring From life?s long vintage??Now thou shalt not know.? VII Shall I not know? I, that could always catch The sunrise in one beam along the wall, The nests of June in April?s mating call, And ruinous autumn in the wind?s first snatch At summer?s green impenetrable thatch? That always knew far off the secret fall Of a god?s feet across the city?s brawl, The touch of silent fingers on my latch? Not thou, vain Moment! Something more than thou Shall write the score of what mine eyes have wept, The touch of kisses that have missed my brow, The murmur of wings that brushed me while I slept, And some mute angel in the breast even now Measures my loss by all that I have kept. VIII Strive we no more. Some hearts are like the bright Tree-chequered spaces, flecked with sun and shade, Where gathered in old days the youth and maid To woo, and weave their dances: with the night They cease their flutings, and the next day?s light Finds the smooth green unconscious of their tread, And ready its velvet pliancies to spread Under fresh feet, til