Amor

This is the fire of Hestia's careful hearth;
The flame that fed on many-towered Troy;
Selene's light about the Latmian boy;
The all-consuming ardor of Melkarth.


This is the peregrine star that will return,
Faithful to the olden ephemerides;
The torch of corybantic mysteries;
The spark still burning in the stoppered urn.


This is the lamp ancestral hands have lit
Deep in the doorless crypts of blood and bone . . . .
For you and me, it is a witch-fire blown


Where secret airs and obscure pinions flit,
That has outburned Walpurgis and the moon
And lifts in quenchless rose to a cloudy noon.