XIV The Selling of a Soul

A poet struggling with the world’s condition,
prostitution of talents and the bondage
with which the bulk of men have been deceived,
I am not, I think, one who would say
that the selling of the soul would give respite.

But I did say to myself, and not once,
that I would sell my soul  for your love
if lie and surrender were needed.
I spoke this in haste without thinking
that it was black blasphemy and perversion.

Your forgiveness to me for the thought
that you were one who would take a poor creature
of a little weak base spirit
who could be sold, even for the graces
of your beautiful face and proud spirit.

Therefore, I will say again now,
that I would sell myy soul for your sake
twice, once for your beauty
and again for that grace
that you would  not take a sold and slavish spirit.

XXXVI

I should have sold my soul
without pricking of conscience for your sake:
because of your refusal I shall make of it steel
to split the rock of vicissitudes.

XXXVII

It is not the beauty of your body,
the beauty shaped in your face,
the beauty blinding my eyes
though it has gone beyond thought;
but the beauty of the spirit
that took form in your face,
the beauty of the spirit,
the heart-marrow of my love.

XXXVIII

I spoke about selling a soul
for your sake, o love:
blasphemy, blasphemy, ugly blasphemy,
a blasphemy of foolish rigmarole:
the soul sold for you would not become free,
the soul sold for your sake
would become enslaved.

XXXIX

As the slow embers of the fire
become a pure sparkling flame,
so my love for you
becomes a white adoration.

Sorley Maclean

My love for you has gone beyond poetry,
beyond imagination, beyond pride,
beyond love-talk, beyond hummed song,
beyond art, beyond laughter-music,
beyond joy, beyond loveliness,
beyond grief, beyond agony,
beyond reason, beyond nature,
beyond the great surging world.

Sorley Maclean

(Source: geewizlizs4c, via nerdyjokes)

My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go.

Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birth-place of Valour, the country of Worth ;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.

Farewell to the mountains, high-cover’d with snow,
Farewell to the straths and green vallies below;
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods,
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.

My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart’s in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe,
My heart’s in the Highlands, wherever I go.

If our language has said that reason
is identical with love,
it is not speaking the truth.

When me eye lighted on your face
It did not show the reason in love,
I did not ask you about the third part.

When I heard your voice it did not make
This division in my flesh;
It did not the first time.

But that came to me without my knowing
and it tore the root of my being,
sweeping me within its drift.

With all I had of apprehension
I put up a shadow of a fight;
my reason struggled.

From the depths of this old wisdom
I spoke to my love:
you are not worthy of me, nor from me.

On the inside of my love,
my intellect on the elegant side,
and the foolish door was broken.

And my intellect said to my love:
duality is not for us;
we mingle in love

Sorley MacLean