NOTES TO AN EPISTLE

 (1 John iv. 7, 18)
Their barriers fell to a bolt of brightness,
and the flood swelled, found them, and carried them far:
love, more lucid and lambent around them
than the wind soaring, wheat-scented,
or the sun's greeting, golden-angeled,
by the broad molten gate of the blue:
love unlooked-for, a lordly spring
winging to the wilderness, shy-flowered.

The eyes not innocent, nor hands idle;
the flesh kindling like a butterfly unfolded;
meshed hair honey to the hungry scent,
a darling net dared by the diving fingers;
sweetness of skin, warmth-of-water-sliding;
mouths mortised in one, like music:
beauty of body under touch or breath;
and fire thrilling though the fruit of his thighs.

Fear shall not walk in the four ways
wedded here: the hearts in their high pasture
of cherishing, of charity, of chosen rest:
and sensual bodies in the sweetness of sparing,
meeting as by magnets although unmated.
Fear shall not follow nor freight their love
guilt geld it nor debase its gold;
nor barriers,  broken, rebuild against it ever.