276. The Ecstasy

WHAT is this reverence in extreme delight

That waits upon my kisses as they storm,

Vehemently, this height

Of steep and inaccessible delight;

And seems with newer ecstasy to warm

Their slackening ardour, and invite,

From nearer heaven, the swarm

Of hiving stars with mortal sweetness down?

Never before

Have I endured an exaltation

So exquisite in anguish, and so sore

In promise and possession of full peace.

Cease not, O nevermore

Cease,

To lift my joy, as upon windy wings,

Into that infinite ascension, where,

In baths of glittering air,

It finds a heaven and like an angel sings.

Heaven waits above,

There where the clouds a fastnesses of love

Lift earth into the skies;

And I have seen the glim of the gates,

And twice or thrice

Climbed half the difficult way,

Only to say

Heaven waits,

Only to fall away from paradise.

But now, O what is this

Mysterious and uncapturable, bliss

That I have known, yet seems to be

Simple as breath, and easy as a smile,

And older than the earth?

Now but a little while

This ultimate ecstasy

Has parted from its birth,

Now but a little while been wholly mine,

Yet am I utterly possessed

By the delicious tyrant and divine

Child, this importunate gues.