76.) Come, Hold My Hand, Let Me Take You . . .

             Come; hold my hand, let me take you

Through the ruby labyrinth once more

Run ragged with me past the paths

That would mould you in their shapes

And press you out in predicted forms

To forever tell, impatient the same tale.

I love you – I would not have you grieved

With what you think my cause

You are free, my love, the paths before you

Now are emptied of any kindly constraint:

You have clearly set down your findings

Added your fragment to the whole

Recorded your progress in the jewelled journey:

Your part in the thrashing out of the whole.

Come with me now aside from the burden

Safely shall they find your anointed leavings

Use them as stepping stones to step on

Or as stones to avoid, as they pick up the hint

Of the new part in the renewed map of the way.

There now, rest in my love for you, you know

Where you are . . . fret not that they see it not:

They never will so completely have I

Possessed you who will allow none so near me.

Let them defame you in jealousy, if they will,

It matters not . . . See! We are here, my love

Our turnings through the maze have brought us

To our heart’s desire for one another alone

And I am yours, and you are mine, my love

My dove, my only one, my sweet child of my love.

                         *

Have you come, at last? Have you ‘seen?’

Many times I have brought you here

To turn you round, face you in the other way.

Have they followed you? I know it is your hope

But only one of you, so far, has bared the path

So dark and perilous the way – so hard, so mad.

It is best not to expect any to follow you.

If I have not brought them, myself, they will

Never find the way it is possible for no one.

I would not let you – lest, by yourself, you should

Have failed in the attempt and be lost to the

Joy I have for you in me, that is my life in you.

It was I who carried you here, my love, my dove

My only one, my sweet love, my only beloved!

                                     *

Never think you are an isolated force.

Though small, you are one with the whole

That is in me: found here: known here:

Loved here: you belong, a priceless diadem

As well you know, as well you have in ecstasy

Experienced, living free in the dark fire

Which is where I am, which mystifies mankind

And offends him. Mysterious the bonds of love

And understanding which bind all parts of

The whole together: knowing each other

In a union of oneness which time and space

Cannot part, and that surpasses all ideas

Of Brotherhood, which is but the shadow of it.

Come, my love, we have wasted enough time!

Let us be gone!  . . . Come, take my hand!

My darling! My only! It is here now, offered:

Feel my breath, my life, feel my love in you!

Let us go onwards through the ruby labyrinth:

A spectre to them that fear, but to those who

Believe the impossible, unutterably a strait way

An arrow’s flight, straight to the heart

And the centre of the Garden of All Delight!

*