‘Mors Janua Vitae.’
I AM the God of the sensuous fire | |
| That moulds all Nature in forms divine; | |
| The symbols of death and of man’s desire, | |
| The springs of change in the world, are mine; | |
| The organs of birth and the circlet of bones, | 5 |
| And the light loves carved on the temple stones. | |
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| I am the lord of delights and pain, | |
| Of the pest that killeth, of fruitful joys; | |
| I rule the currents of heart and vein; | |
| A touch gives passion, a look destroys; | 10 |
| In the heat and cold of my lightest breath | |
| Is the might incarnate of Lust and Death. | |
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| If a thousand altars stream with blood | |
| Of the victims slain by the chanting priest, | |
| Is a great God lured by the savoury food? | 15 |
| I reck not of worship, or song, or feast; | |
| But that millions perish, each hour that flies, | |
| Is the mystic sign of my sacrifice. | |
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| Ye may plead and pray for the millions born; | |
| They come like dew on the morning grass; | 20 |
| Your vows and vigils I hold in scorn, | |
| The soul stays never, the stages pass; | |
| All life is the play of the power that stirs | |
| In the dance of my wanton worshippers. | |
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| And the strong swift river my shrine below | 25 |
| It runs, like man, its unending course | |
| To the boundless sea from eternal snow; | |
| Mine is the Fountain—and mine the Force | |
| That spurs all nature to ceaseless strife; | |
| And my image is Death at the gates of Life. | 30 |
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| In many a legend and many a shape, | |
| In the solemn grove and the crowded street, | |
| I am the Slayer, whom none escape; | |
| I am Death trod under a fair girl’s feet; | |
| I govern the tides of the sentient sea | 35 |
| That ebbs and flows to eternity. | |
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| And the sum of the thought and the knowledge of man | |
| Is the secret tale that my emblems tell; | |
| Do ye seek God’s purpose, or trace his plan? | |
| Ye may read your doom in my parable: | 40 |
| For the circle of life in its flower and its fall | |
| Is the writing that runs on my temple wall.… | |
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| Let my temples fall, they are dark with age, | |
| Let my idols break, they have stood their day; | |
| On their deep hewn stones the primeval sage | 45 |
| Has figured the spells that endure alway; | |
| My presence may vanish from river and grove, | |
| But I rule for ever in Death and Love. | |
