Doors of the temple
- Many are the doors of the spirit that lead
- Into the inmost shrine:
- And I count the gates of the temple divine,
- Since the god of the place is God indeed.
- And these are the gates that God decreed
- Should lead to his house:—kisses and wine,
- Cool depths of thought, youth without rest,
- And calm old age, prayer and desire,
- The lover's and mother's breast,
- The fire of sense and the poet's fire.
- But he that worships the gates alone,
- Forgetting the shrine beyond, shall see
- The great valves open suddenly,
- Revealing, not God's radiant throne,
- But the fires of wrath and agony.
- --oOo-- -