VITA NUOVA

I ABDICATE my daily self that bled, As others breathe, for porridge it might sup. Henceforth apocalypse will get my bread For me. I bit my tongue and gnawed my lip, But now the visor of my name is up. Giving to love my undivided nature, Cherishing beauty with the breath I keep, I have been otherwise a part-time creature, With many selves to fool myself with hope, And in myself a gentler self to weep. Now I will peel that vision from my brain Of numbers wrangling in a common place, And I will go, unburdened, on the quiet lane Of my eternal kind, till shadowless With inner light I wear my father’s face. Moon of the soul, accompany me now, Shine on the coliseums of my sense, Be in the tabernacles of my brow. My dark will make, reflecting thee at once, The single beam of all my life intense.