The Threefold Entrance

There are three gates to the City of Light
    Where the souls of the purified reign, –
Three jeweled gates flashing far on the sight
    As we walk o’er the asphodel plain;
Each lit with a glory coruscant, that shifts,
    Interfuses, and mingles above,
Where its arches of beryl the Temple uplifts
    Over Poesy, Music, and Love.

One crowns afar the precipitous shore
    Where the poet climbs alone;
While a joyous flock to another soar
    On the wings of insatiable tone;
But a flowery path winds broadly above
    To a portal of purest pearl;
And the million there with a thought of Love
    The Beautiful Gate unfurl.

There are three tongues of the soul below
    That are native to souls above;
Their speech, where the luminous waters flow,
    Is Poesy, Music, and Love.
It rains through the rift of a golden cloud,
    It is heard in the depths of a dream;
To the listening soul in the clamorous crowd
    It comes with a joy supreme.

It bears us up as an angel’s wing
    To the mountains of pure desire;
And the Lip, the Heart, and the Spirit sing —
    Three chords of a golden lyre!
If I render in words some thought of that zone
    Where the souls anointed climb,
Thou, Ella,* in thrills of ineffable tone
    With the seraph choir may rhyme:
But the wordless many have still a tongue
    That all the angels know,
That the best I have uttered, or thou hast sung,
    Has feebly translated below;
A tender word, or a smile serene,
    A glance of the luminous eye,
Or gentle deeds, of the world unseen,
    Is that language of the sky.