Doors of the Temple, Aldous Huxley


Doors of the Temple

Many are the doors of the spirit that lead
Into the inmost shrine:
And I count the gates of the temple divine,
Since the god of the place is God indeed.
And these are the gates that God decreed
Should lead to his house:—kisses and wine,
Cool depths of thought, youth without rest,
And calm old age, prayer and desire,
The lover's and mother's breast,
The fire of sense and the poet's fire.

But he that worships the gates alone,
Forgetting the shrine beyond, shall see
The great valves open suddenly,
Revealing, not God's radiant throne,
But the fires of wrath and agony.


The end