Oath on an Altar

Oh, why so still, my song?

Leave the eternal pastoral and fly

To where the city's vast metallic eye

Opens on visions carved of iron and steel,

Machinery too immaculate to feel

The silent drop of blood beneath the stone.

OATH ON AN ALTAR

By those unfeeling eyes,

Emasculated, luminous, precise,

I swear to steep my soul in brightest ice,

And walk through oceans, valleys, altitudes,

That rise and sink and change and die forever.

By those forgotten hands,

I make my vow, old love, deep buried now

By what forsaken altar, and what shrine

Made sacred by the goat-feet of a god.

I loosen veils of darkness, I shall bathe

In sunlight of your memory, that fades

And leaves a shadow brighter than the sun.

Oh, be obscured,

My passionate one, be buried and lie hidden-

My love feeds on the hidden roots of time.

Let rumor hide your eyes, pity your hands,

And terror shield you with her coverlet,

While your bright sword is sleeping with the worm.