I
I am initiate,—long disciplined
In delicate austerities of art:
The clear compulsions of the sovran mind
Constrain the dreamy panics of my heart.
Plato and Dante, Petrarch, Lancelot,
Revealed me very Love, flame-clad, august.
Also I strove to be as we are not,
Loyal, and honourable, and even just.
My webs of life in reveries were dyed
As veils in vats of purple: so there stole
Serene and sumptuous and mysterious pride
Through the imperial vesture of my soul.—
And lo! like any servile fool I crave
The dark strange rapture of the stricken slave.