The Great Longing

Here I sit between my brother the mountain and my sister the sea.
 
We three are one in loneliness, and the love that binds us together
is deep and strong and strange.  Nay, it is deeper than my sister’s
depth and stronger than my brother’s strength, and stranger than
the strangeness of my madness.
 
Aeons upon aeons have passed since the first grey dawn made us
visible to one another; and though we have seen the birth and the
fullness and the death of many worlds, we are still eager and young.
 
We are young and eager and yet we are mateless and unvisited, and
though we lie in unbroken half embrace, we are uncomforted.  And
what comfort is there for controlled desire and unspent passion?
Whence shall come the flaming god to warm my sister’s bed?  And
what she-torrent shall quench my brother’s fire?  And who is the
woman that shall command my heart?
 
In the stillness of the night my sister murmurs in her sleep the
fire-god’s unknown name, and my brother calls afar upon the cool
and distant goddess.  But upon whom I call in my sleep I know not.
 
                                            *        *         *
 
Here I sit between my brother the mountain and my sister the sea.
We three are one in loneliness, and the love that binds us together
is deep and strong and strange.