The Epilogue Of The Dreaming Women

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Title:     The Epilogue Of The Dreaming Women
Author: Rachel Annand Taylor [More Titles by Taylor]

Take back this armour. Give us broideries.
Against the Five sad Wounds inveterate
In our dim sense, can that defend, or these?
In veils mysterious and delicate
Clothe us again, in beautiful broideries.

Take back this justice. Give us thuribles.
While ye do loudly in the battle-dust,
We feed the gods with spice and canticles.
To our strange hearts, as theirs, just and unjust
Are idle words. Give graven thuribles.

Keep orb and sceptre. Give us up your souls
That our long fingers wake them verily
Like dulcimers and citherns and violes;
Or at the burning disk of ecstasy
Impose rare sigils on your gem-like souls.

Give mercies, cruelties, and exultations,
Give the long trances of the breaking heart;
And we shall bring you great imaginations
To urge you through the agony of Art.
Give cloud and flame, give trances, exultations.

[The end]
Rachel Annand Taylor's poem: Epilogue Of The Dreaming Women

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