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Title: To Purity
Author: William Rose Benet [
More Titles by Benet]
God knows that you are beautiful as Death
Chanced on in some hot, sunlit forest-clearing
Where--burst from tangled thickets, with desperate breath--
My outlawed heart might gasp at him appearing
So sudden and dazzling upon my rage and fearing,--
Such pale announcement, such quietude should endue
Tall, proud, grave Death, with noble footsteps nearing!
Immortal goddess, thus beautiful are you!
God knows that you are passionate as Life,
On rhythmic curves of bosom and limb attending,--
Sweet as clear water, and acid as a knife
Thrust through fresh fruit wherewith the bough is bending,--
Yet rule the riotous blood to Man's befriending,--
Yea, hush his ghastly tears the midnight through,
To flesh of flesh your ageless mystery lending.
Ah, holy goddess, thus terrible are you!
God knows that you are hated as men hate
Only the highest and the uttermost presence,
For in your eyes is anger to break fate
And life's too blissful sweet is all your essence.
Your glory seethed the suns to incandescence,
You are flame--flame! Our creeds your orb unto
Are but thin shadowy demilunes and crescents,--
Immortal goddess, so infinite are you!
Infinite in range of life, the worm you quicken
From crashing suns.... "Let there be light!" you said.
Light was, and life,--Man rose, and Man fell stricken
By your relentless power that through him sped;
And again Man rose, halt like the walking dead,
Dragging these heavy laws you never knew
Till you recoiled from him astonishèd,--
Ah, holy goddess, so wonderful were you!
So now Man hath smeared filth upon your altar,
And, slant-eyed and slime-lipped, wrought sins apart.
His tongue intones an abominable psalter
Hoarsely, and on his brows cold sweat-drops start,--
Nor through your oracles speaks he from his heart,
Hearing you in the porches of his ears;
His eyes are blind of you, where only smart
The sick revulsions of his ignorant tears.
No! He intones by rote a coded praise,
Unto a leering two-faced god falls prone,
And smears with lust and fear his alternate days
For monstrous imaginations to atone;
For you, most instant, most ardent,--you are flown
Like fumes to his clownish brain, and in his fear
He dreams you a eunuch carved of pallid stone
Warning, "Beware all ye who enter here!"
[The end]
William Rose Benet's poem: To Purity
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