Poem by Coventry Patmore

The Three Witnesses

Musing I met, in no strange land,
What meet thou must to understand:
An Angel. There was none but he,
Yet 'twas a glorious company.
God, Youth, and Goddess, one, twain, trine,
In altering wedlock flamed benign.
The Youth i' the midst did shadowy seem,
Till merged in either blest extreme,
But could, by choosing, each way turn,
And, with God, for the Goddess burn,
Or vanish in the Goddess quite,
To be, with her, the God's delight;
And, whether he chose Hers or His,
He glow'd at once with either's bliss.
The head was Godhead without guile,
A solar force, an infant's smile;
Breasted the Wonder was and loin'd
With Man and Woman's beauties join'd;
And thence, O, moonlike and most sweet,
The Goddess brighten'd to the feet,
Which, when they felt the one the other,
Felt each like Cupid and his Mother.
Unwearying, since I caught that sight,
Him have I praised by whose word's might
The Heavens and the Earth did breathe
And the gay Waters underneath. 

1. Alexander And Lycon
2. Eros
3. The Spirit's Depths
4. Olympus
5. Venus And Death

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