THE VIRGIN SOUL
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Through your fingers and away, to its own, its unwalled places,Rising on the flights of birds and dipping lightly to the valleys,Drinking at the fount of fragrance, one with plumy waving grasses,One with those soft splendid shadows where the windblown cloud-pack passesDown to gardens where the moon-flower checks the white hours of her leasingAnd the sun-flower on her petals keeps the warm day's gilded tallies,Moon and Sun's devoted minions, with a rivalry unceasing!
Men can seek a hand's caressing, or the touch of women's faces,And the bargain may assuage them-if this be the thing they need!Only in my outer garden may you stand with lust-shod feet:I have kept the inner chamber for another cool and sweet,And a flaming sword shall guard it, tireless, till that other come-Take my hand and lips and slake you: so I keep the word and deed,But my soul is always mateless till that other soul comes home!
