McClure's Magazine/Volume 51/Number 10/Isabel, William and Albert

by Edgar Lee Masters

Soul of the Universe! Eternal Love!

Making for change and death—but for life!

Multiform, mysterious, exhaustless,

It is not through you that our spirits become one—

A bond in the flesh on earth,

And mingled flames in this realm?

We three, lovers, husbands of the same woman!

First I, this woman that was,

Who loved William and was his wife,

And loved him none the less in death,

Nor less when I became the wife,

Of you, my adored Albert;

Next I, this man William,

Who loved you, Albert, in life,

And next in death,

Because you loved the Isabel I loved.

And lastly, I who was Albert,

Who loved you, William, because you loved her,

Because she loved you,

I, who was her husband to the last,

Treasuring your memory with her—

Being, O blissful fate, what you were to her,

With something else which spoke for progress in love.

This is the mystery, the final consummation,

The illumination of passion,

The realization of eternal light

From the love of man and woman on earth!