THROUGH thee, Virginity, endure The stars, most integral and pure, And ever contemplate Themselves inviolate In waters, and do love unknown Beauty they dream not is their own! Through thee the waters bare Their bosoms to the air, And with confession never done Admit the sacerdotal sun, Absolved eternally By his asperging eye. To tread the floor of lofty souls, With thee Love mingles aureoles; Who walk his mountain-peak Thy sister-hand must seek. A hymen all unguessed of men In dreams thou givest to my ken; For lacking of like mate, Eternally frustrate: Where, that the soul of either spouse Securelier clasp in either's house, They never breach at all Their walls corporeal. This was the secret of the great And primal Paradisal state, Which Adam and which Eve Might not again retrieve. Yet hast thou toward my vision taught A way to draw in vernal thought, Not all too far from that Great Paradisal state, Which for that earthy men might wrong, Were't uttered in this earthless song, Thou layest cold finger-tips Upon my histed lips. But thou, who knowest the hidden thing Thou hast instructed me to sing, Teach Love the way to be A new Virginity! Do thou with thy protecting hand Shelter the flame thy breath has fanned; Let my heart's reddest glow Be but as sun-flushed snow. And if they say that snow is cold, O Chastity, must they be told The hand that's chafed with snow Takes a redoubled glow? -- That extreme cold like heat doth sear? O to this heart of love draw near, And feel how scorching rise Its white-cold purities! Life, ancient and o'er-childed nurse, To turn my thirsting mouth averse, Her breast embittereth With wry foretaste of death: But thou, sweet Lady Chastity, Thou, and thy brother Love with thee, Upon her lap may'st still Sustain me, if thou will. Out of the terrors of the tomb, And unclean shapes that haunt sleep's gloom, Yet, yet I call on thee, -- 'Abandon thou not me!' Now sung is all the singing of this chant. Lord, Lord, be nigh unto me in my want! For to the idols of the Gentiles I Will never make me an hierophant: -- Their false-fair gods of gold and ivory, Which have a mouth, nor any speech thereby, Save such as soundeth from the throat of hell The aboriginal lie; And eyes, nor any seeing in the light, -- Gods of the obscene night, To whom the darkness is for diadem. Let them that serve them be made like to them, Yea, like to him who fell Shattered in Gaza, as the Hebrews tell, Before the simple presence of the Ark. My singing is gone out upon the dark. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE WANTS OF MAN by JOHN QUINCY ADAMS BLACK AND BLUE EYES by THOMAS MOORE |