The boy is fraught, fraught with a vesselled cargo,
Rhine-laden, with choice meats and grape-crushed wine,
Pleasing to the eye and good for food,
Promising a rare conjuction of the breast
And the best of man, eros unblinded,
Wisdom beyond belief. Shall he take, and eat?
------
Superior:
The night is young, the heart impure
His motive clung to base allure.
Let him pant for salty waters
Let him chant for Memory's daughters
Master:
Kneel, raise thine eyes
To the starry rose
Lingering in the skies.
Hold the foremost thought
In the folded throes
Of thy heaving sighs.
Craft a cradle wrought
Of musical repose
For the queens thou caught.
Novice:
O Loveliness, terrible tamer,
Who draws me!
O Urania, wonderful secrecy,
Who bore me!
O Sin-Bearer, bloody comfort,
Who mends me!
O Clio, old friend,
Who feeds me!
O Symphonia, countless magnificence,
Who calls me!
O Sacred Virgin, pensive, harmonious,
Who hears me!
O Thalia, laughing lover,
Who mocks me!
O Leaping-Poise, studied and supple,
Who charms me!
O Calliope, oldest and wisest,
Who arms me!
My own Demeter, wandering mother,
Who decimates me!
O bright-eyed goddesses, my captors,
Free me!
God! shall the weave of passions be unknit?
The lion with the lamb lie in discourse,
The lioness forgot? Why do I sit
Down with dotards, these drunkards, weary source
Of drab serenity? Oh! Why this game
Of wit-play with these toffs, these dandies, all
Unbosomed of their first, their manful aim,
Museum-butchers! only fit to crawl
At the feet of her I'd love, and wed.
Lady, to Parnassus, fly with me!
We'll crown each-other in a laurel bed,
Souls coenflesh 'til maid made mother be.
Superior:
His ecstasy has tuned the pitch,
Summon we th'alchemic witch:
That he seek far through murky fire
The Morning Star of man's desire.
Master:
Hierophant of light
Guide us to the east,
A Saviour in the night.
Graces teach this flock,
Starving for the feast,
The highway of delight.
By your voice unlock
The captive unreleased
For
Novice:
Mirth who moors me,
Mock me!
Love who moves me,
Make me!
Plenty who plays me,
Prive me!
Love who plauges me,
Prove me!
Beauty who blinds me,
Bless me!
Love who binds me,
Blisse me!
These mordant flames that shrivel up my gaze,
And wrap my soul in heaven-bound billowing smoke,
Have robbed the coal that taught my lips to praise,
And suffocate the self-same breast they stoke.
Lines parallel converge before my eyes,
Three circles spin into a cubic city,
The feminine is myst'ry in disguise,
These stars foretell we'll dance an epic ditty.
Ah! Transmutate this all-too-human love,
And make a saint or statesman of this mote,
That nor I'll faint when on the block I prove,
Nor myth not names my leap down the sea's throat.
Transcendent zeal consummates in Now,
For all is weal, though weeds uproot the plough.
------
A model of the cosmos, miniature and simple as the cosmos,
A magus of the Nile brought to Kent, beautiful, to puzzle the prognosticators
Who sought its power but missed its meaning:
Through the golden haze entrapping, midst the golden figures dancing,
Quick now, here, now, always, flies the Fool.
For all is well. Therefore take; eat; drink.
