Paradise Re-entered by D.H. Lawrence — Read

THROUGH the strait gate of passion, / Between the bickering fire / Where flames of fierce love tremble / On the body of fierce desire:

To the intoxication, / The mind, fused down like a bead, / Flees in its agitation / The flames' stiff speed:

At last to calm incandescence, / Burned clean by remorseless hate, / Now, at the day's renascence / We approach the gate.

Now, from the darkened spaces / Of fear, and of frightened faces, / Death, in our awful embraces / Approached and passed by;

We near the flame-burnt porches / Where the brands of the angels, like torches / Whirl,--in these perilous marches / Pausing to sigh;

We look back on the withering roses, / The stars, in their sun-dimmed closes, / Where 'twas given us to repose us / Sure on our sanctity;

Beautiful, candid lovers, / Burnt out of our earthy covers, / We might have nestled like plovers / In the fields of eternity.

There, sure in sinless being, / All-seen, and then all-seeing, / In us life unto death agreeing, / We might have lain.

But we storm the angel-guarded / Gates of the long-discarded, / Garden, which God has hoarded / Against our pain.

The Lord of Hosts, and the Devil / Are left on Eternity's level / Field, and as victors we travel / To Eden home.

Back beyond good and evil / Return we. Eve dishevel / Your hair for the bliss-drenched revel / On our primal loam.