Page:The Soul of a Century.djvu/132

  The grandiose light of the Universe that through my vision stole, With its secret of eternal flames and timeless might, Was reflected by the mirror of the Cosmos in my soul And focused itself into a crimson burning nucleus of light.

The stench of dessicated blood I breathed from the tales of old The terrors of the Unknown, the depths of my soul amassed, I saw in life the phantom of happiness unfold And break when refracted by the upper spheres it passed.

I do not long to quench my thirst at life’s water-ways Nor as Gedeon’s army, drink at the source from out my palms, I gathered in my soul the tenderness of mystic rays, And in the Secret shrine I knelt with unknown qualms.

My soul is saddened now, and full of a longing scent, My thought is just a taper of feeble light that shone Quiveringly in the human sconce, impure and bent A taper upon the timeless altar of the Great Unknown

O strength of ecstasies and dreams, all art from you Glows with a fan of hues and in its tones resounds Beneath your spell, thoughts in a blaze stream through As the light from ether in vibrant threads rebounds.

Send down upon my soul your glowing burning flow O might victorious where inspiration lies, As onto the altar of stone heavens poured fires below Wheron Elias of old offered his bloody sacrifice