Transfigured

Love took the sordid clay And pierced its grossness as with lustral fire, Fashioned a spirit from the common earth, And crowned him lord and king with tears and mirth: Love took the sordid clay And shaped it to the god of her desire.

Then, ere he could resign His white divinity and fall away From that ineffable, ideal height Whereto he had been lifted by Love’s might Ere he could so resign His godhead and return again to clay,

Death took the god of Love-- The god that was but man ashine with gleams From inner fires that Love’s own hands supplied-- And made him deathless who might else have died: Death took the god of Love And throned him in the heaven of her dreams.