I burned my life, that I might find 
A passion wholly of the mind, 
Thought divorced from eye and bone, 
Ecstasy come to breath alone. 
I broke my life, to seek relief 
From the flawed light of love and grief.

With mounting beat the utter fire 
Charred existence and desire. 
It died low, ceased its sudden thresh.
I found unmysterious flesh—
Not the mind’s avid substance—still
Passionate beyond the will.

  O sweet spontaneous
  earth how often have
  the
  doting

                   fingers of
  prurient philosophers pinched
  and
  poked

   thee
  ,has the naughty thumb
  of science prodded
  thy

           beauty     how
  often have religions taken
  thee upon their scraggy knees
  squeezing and

  buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
  gods
            (but
  true

  to the incomparable
  couch of death thy
  rhythmic
  lover

                 thou answerest


  them only with

                                 spring)