Offering   Priestess, what will you sacrifice? The altar of the dawn's afire, The gods stoop from their paradise To taste the ash of your desire.   What can you offer save a dream? This body is but dust of earth, And life's a purple passion-stream, And mind a moon of airy birth.   Within the Fire offer fire, Your silent heart's pure lonely flame;  What have you lovelier or higher To burn before his beauteous Name?   O priestess-soul, before He call, The Sun-God of the mystic dance, Gather your strength and lay your all Upon the dawn's red altar-trance.   Then He, the Lord of sacrifice Will open his gold-gates

To a "Modern" Poet   Consider, friend, your strange new art: The giddy babel, the words' dark pall; Consider the towering tragic wall You build between a heart and heart.   Clever, cunning, you close the doors, And shut a mad beast in the den; The tongues of flame, sun-speech of men, You change to grovelling moans and roars.   Uncogent babbling, whim absurd, With mockery your pages fill; The watching soul has but one will; To hear the one Eternal Word:   When through each image, symbol, sound, Silence and speech weave endlessly A faultless work of filigree, The patterns of a Truth profound. Page-159

Death   I am become as nothing, A hollow pit, A vacancy of sorrow, Unlifed, unlit; A ghost of empty silence, Afloat in dream, Through starless wastes of darkness, Across night's stream; Over voids of blank unseeing, Undwelt of God; A numb grey pain of being, A crumbled clod...   Why have You gone and left me Bereft of grace, Within this soundless, senseless Cold tomb of space?   — Yet with sweet memories of Your Love and light, Of Beauty now withdrawn from My stained dimmed sight; Of deep warm Joy overflooding Each cell with song, Of Life-founts rippling over In rapturous throng — P

Yearning   Evening stars and morning suns, And all the callous, vagrant runs Of empty days that cross the sea Of dark, unhallowed memory.. . Day in, day out, the fiend red sands Run through death's steely, glassy hands; And passion's waters break and roar, Tide in, tide out, upon thought's shore.   And Beauty that awakes to kiss The soul, but falls in pain's abyss; Losing all meaning in earth's mesh, All sanctity within the flesh.   When will You cut the devil-masks And give us all the spirit asks; Beyond Time's tainted sands and seas, Waft us to pristine purities? Page-46

The Waiting   Now that the rivers have begun to flow and the falls of gold from on high, The centre of the sun begins to unseal; We who have waited long begin to feel the breath of Your spirit, we begin to know the hour of the Descent is nigh.   No delusion this? Ah, Lord, do not delude us; say, is the hope too quick, the bliss too green to drink ungolden, untouched of the sun? Delay?... Pause? think?... The waiting is agony again. O globe of silent pain, bubble of the earth-foam, burst; win to free faith, a new birth; set free the will of the Word within that incarnates God on earth. Page-91

The Rune   There is a memory that has no tune, No shape for sense or ear or eye, A lonely thing, an age-old rune, Carved on the blue rocks of the sky.   When all our murmuring memories pass, Drifting across the seas of time, Winds of earth-loves among the grass, Adream with vibrant song and rhyme;   Within the Silence shall unfold The magic of the runic scroll, The characters of sun-burnt gold, Chiselled in fire upon the soul. Page-59

What Word of Fire   What word of fire, Goddess, what white spell, Swift-soaring upwards through these silent skies, May reach those worlds of splendour and surprise, Your home of love where all life's meanings dwell? Had we the purity we could compel You to come down to us; had we the eyes To see those veiled ineffable secrecies, The mystery of your being, there would well Within our hearts such inward power, we'd grow To utter loveliness and be with you, Free from the anguish of this senseless show, Free from the fiery rounds of death and birth, For ever in your sweetness fashioned anew, Till, Lady, you once more descend

Cities of Night   Last night we strayed into the lands of Night, Cities of death, where in the howling street Men walk wolf-eyed, dim evil-eyed, and cheat The mind to images of ghastly sight. Wildly they grope for power, and bite and fight, And kill the heart with passion's poisoned sweet, Burn black the lips with falsehood and deceit, Pollute and desecrate the soul's delight.   The shapes of all things cruel, dark, impure, Are gathered there in horrid slums of shame, And over all that filth, Night's veiling soot; Disdain, distress, despair fill every core Of being; wondering we asked, "Who is to blame, Whence fall the see

Alone   Walking alone, walking inside, Where the radiant lane of power goes straight Deep, deep within, I contemplate Your image wherein all truths abide.   Silent the way, and pure and white; The pressure of that ecstasy Dissolves the being into light: Alone with you, eternally. Page-100

The Rune Within   Listen in the silent night: There's a voice within your dream; When the phantom jazz takes flight, You will hear the singing stream:   The melody of some new morn, Sun-Word of the coming Birth, The mantra of the worlds unborn, A rune that sings beneath the earth. Page-114