The Secret Gate
From out the dark of sleep I rose, on the
wings of desire :
“Give me the joy of sight,” I cried,”O Master of Hidden Fire!”
And a Voice said : Wait
Till you pass the Gate.
“Give me the joy of sight,” I cried, “O Mas-
ter of Hidden Fire !
By the flame in the heart of the soul, grant
my desire ! ”
And a Voice said : Wait
Till you pass the Gate.
I shook the dark with the tremulous beat of
my wings of desire:
“Give me but once the thing I ask, O Master
of Hidden Fire ! ”
And a Voice said: irait!
You have reached the Gate.
I rose from flame to flame on pinions of desire:
And I heard the voice of the Master of Hidden Fire:
Behold the Flaming Gate,
Where Sight doth wait!
Like a wandering star I fell through the deeps of desire,
And back through the portals of sleep the
Master of Hidden Fire
Thundered: Await
The opening of the Gate!
But now I pray, now I pray, with passionate desire :
“Blind me, O blind me. Master of Hidden
Fire,
I supplicate,
Ope not the Gate.”
Fiona Macleod (William Sharp), The Secret Gate
be careful what you wish for…especially in a world that bends lovingly to your every imagining.
William Sharp, writing as Fiona Macleod, was (or so I have heard) intensely drawn to the Faery world and spent a rather uneasy life in human society. This work represents his longing to return to the ‘other’ world whilst summing up the terrible dilemma faced by anyone who tries to live on both sides