Roy Campbell - The Golden Shower, by Roy Campbell
Though we seem merely mortal, what we are <br />Is clearly mirrored on a deathless flood. <br />We change and fade: our dust is strewn afar— <br />Only the ancient river of our blood, <br />Rising far-off in unimagined spaces, <br />Red with the silt and ruin of the past <br />And churning with the strife of savage races, <br />Like deep Zambezi goes on rolling past, <br />Swiftens through us its energies unending, <br />And reaches out, beneath the shades we cast, <br />To what vast ocean of the night descending, <br />Or in what sunny lake at last to sleep, <br />We do not know — save that it turns to foam, <br />Just here, for us; its currents curl and comb <br />And all its castalies in thunder leap, <br />Silvering, forth into a white resilience <br />Of ecstasy, whose momentary brilliance <br />Must compensate eternities of sleep. <br /> <br />Knowing these things, are not we lovers, then, <br />Though mortal in our nature, more than men? <br />Since by our senses, as by rivers, veined, <br />The hills of primary memory are drained, <br />And the dim summits of their frosty spars, <br />Whose tops are nibbled by the grazing stars, <br />Thawed by the rising noon of our desire, <br />And fusing into consciousness and fire, <br />Down through the sounding canyons of the soul <br />Their rich alluvium of starlight roll.<br /><br />Roy Campbell<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem..../the-golden-shower-b
