god of violets.
In jasper caves she lies behind her veils;
And jars of spice, and gilded ears of corn,
And wine-red roses and rose-red wine-grails
Feed her long trances while the far flutes mourn.
She lies and dreams daemonic passionate things:
Cherubim guard her gates with monstrous wings.

XXVIII

SATIETY

Ah! love me not with honey-sweet excesses,
With passionate prodigalities of praise,
With wreaths of daisied words and quaint caresses,
Adore me not in charming childish ways.
This pastoral is beautiful enough:
But never shall it antidote my drouth:
I want a reticent ironic Love
With smiling eyes and faintly mocking mouth.
Sweetness is best when bitterly 'tis bought:
So in Love's deadly duel I would not be
Victorious, and the peace I long have sought,
Sure knowledge of his great supremacy,
Would buy with pangs, like that bright cuirassier,
The queen-at-arms that knew the Peliad's spear.

XXIX

THE CONFESSION

I

I am initiate,--long disciplined
In delicate austerities of art:
The clear compulsions of the sovran mind
Constrain the dreamy panics of my heart.
Plato and Dante, Petrarch, Lancelot,
Revealed me very Love, flame-clad, august.
Also I strove to be as we are not,
Loyal, and honourable, and even just.
My webs of life in reveries were dyed
As veils in vats of purple: so there stole
Serene and sumptuous and mysterious pride
Through the imperial vesture of my soul.--
And lo! like any servile fool I crave
The dark strange rapture of the stricken slave.

XXX

THE CONFESSION

II

I have a banner and a great duke's way,
I have an High Adventure of my own.
Yet would I rather squire a knightlier,--Nay!
Be the least harper by his red-hung throne.
I am not satisfied with any love
Till I can say, "O stronger far than I!"
Is it a shame to hide the aching of,
A sacred mystery to justify?
Through all our spiritual discontents
Thrills the strange leaven of renunciation.--
Ah! god unknown behind the Sacraments
Unfailing of the earthly expiation,
Lift up this amethyst-encumbered Vine,
Crush from her pain some ransom-cup of Wine.

XXXI

COMRADES

Yet for the honourable felicity
Of comradeship I can be chivalrous,
And through love's transmutations fierily
Constant as the gemmed paladin Sirius
To that fair pact. We go, gay challengers,
Beneath dark