Warder of Stars:

No creature she of human love
And neither spirit to ease the rub
Hair as black as earth, as ravens wing
Ever silent save in savouring

I watched her delicately pass
My ear did cherish the poison draught

Consonant with the sun and earth, she
Though I am scented with desire
Of myrrh and darkness oils a blood air
And does mist the thief from the defiled

Death dare not break the sanctum of this love
It shall shelter us when Eden as a woman
Is exiled to the East
For she desireth
I would have taken
dear alms from the olive
of her flesh
and known
this only peace

I loved her as she softly passed
My heart did cherish the poison asp

For the beast reeling to hideous rage
My love is a lioness within a nightingale's cage

For we are bred from the dearest age
To rise and not melt from the enemy
If the cold hand taught of pain
And the warm hand of love
There is love even in the teaching of pain
But this is lost in her cold hand
And her warm hand has now grown cold to me
In that I no longer seek its warmth

And yet union without love
Is as the rantings of a deaf mute
And joy unembittered by the deep
Flowing passions of the sea
Is as an arid stringless oud
For the notes teased by nothing more
Than a handful of lust
Are as flattering to the soul
As a palmful of dust

For the truth free from mocking bile
My love is a garden undefiled

The land below, above the sky
Eternal veil between my love & I...