Do you not hear each morsel thrill With joy at travelling to plant itself within The expectant one, therein to instil New rapture, new shape to win, From the thick of life wake up another will?
Surely, and if that I would spill The vivid, ah, the fiery surplus of life, From off my br.i.m.m.i.n.g measure, to fill You, and flush you rife With increase, do you call it evil, and always evil?
A LOVE SONG
REJECT me not if I should say to you I do forget the sounding of your voice, I do forget your eyes that searching through The mists perceive our marriage, and rejoice.
Yet, when the apple-blossom opens wide Under the pallid moonlight"s fingering, I see your blanched face at my breast, and hide My eyes from diligent work, malingering.
Ah, then, upon my bedroom I do draw The blind to hide the garden, where the moon Enjoys the open blossoms as they straw Their beauty for his taking, boon for boon.
And I do lift my aching arms to you, And I do lift my anguished, avid breast, And I do weep for very pain of you, And fling myself at the doors of sleep, for rest.
And I do toss through the troubled night for you, Dreaming your yielded mouth is given to mine, Feeling your strong breast carry me on into The peace where sleep is stronger even than wine.
BROTHER AND SISTER
THE shorn moon trembling indistinct on her path, Frail as a scar upon the pale blue sky, Draws towards the downward slope; some sorrow hath Worn her down to the quick, so she faintly fares Along her foot-searched way without knowing why She creeps persistent down the sky"s long stairs.
Some say they see, though I have never seen, The dead moon heaped within the new moon"s arms; For surely the fragile, fine young thing had been Too heavily burdened to mount the heavens so.
But my heart stands still, as a new, strong dread alarms Me; might a young girl be heaped with such shadow of woe?
Since Death from the mother moon has pared us down to the quick, And cast us forth like shorn, thin moons, to travel An uncharted way among the myriad thick Strewn stars of silent people, and luminous litter Of lives which sorrows like mischievous dark mice chavel To nought, diminishing each star"s glitter,
Since Death has delivered us utterly, naked and white, Since the month of childhood is over, and we stand alone, Since the beloved, faded moon that set us alight Is delivered from us and pays no heed though we moan In sorrow, since we stand in bewilderment, strange And fearful to sally forth down the sky"s long range.
We may not cry to her still to sustain us here, We may not hold her shadow back from the dark.
Oh, let us here forget, let us take the sheer Unknown that lies before us, bearing the ark Of the covenant onwards where she cannot go.
Let us rise and leave her now, she will never know.
AFTER MANY DAYS
I WONDER if with you, as it is with me, If under your slipping words, that easily flow About you as a garment, easily, Your violent heart beats to and fro!
Long have I waited, never once confessed, Even to myself, how bitter the separation; Now, being come again, how make the best Reparation?
If I could cast this clothing off from me, If I could lift my naked self to you, Or if only you would repulse me, a wound would be Good; it would let the ache come through.
But that you hold me still so kindly cold Aloof my flaming heart will not allow; Yea, but I loathe you that you should withhold Your pleasure now.
BLUE
THE earth again like a ship steams out of the dark sea over The edge of the blue, and the sun stands up to see us glide Slowly into another day; slowly the rover Vessel of darkness takes the rising tide.
I, on the deck, am startled by this dawn confronting Me who am issued amazed from the darkness, stripped And quailing here in the sunshine, delivered from haunting The night unsounded whereon our days are shipped.
Feeling myself undawning, the day"s light playing upon me, I who am substance of shadow, I all compact Of the stuff of the night, finding myself all wrongly Among the crowds of things in the sunshine jostled and racked.
I with the night on my lips, I sigh with the silence of death; And what do I care though the very stones should cry me unreal, though the clouds Shine in conceit of substance upon me, who am less than the rain.
Do I not know the darkness within them? What are they but shrouds?
The clouds go down the sky with a wealthy ease Casting a shadow of scorn upon me for my share in death; but I Hold my own in the midst of them, darkling, defy The whole of the day to extinguish the shadow I lift on the breeze.
Yea, though the very clouds have vantage over me, Enjoying their glancing flight, though my love is dead, I still am not homeless here, I"ve a tent by day Of darkness where she sleeps on her perfect bed.
And I know the host, the minute sparkling of darkness Which vibrates untouched and virile through the grandeur of night, But which, when dawn crows challenge, a.s.saulting the vivid motes Of living darkness, bursts fretfully, and is bright:
Runs like a fretted arc-lamp into light, Stirred by conflict to shining, which else Were dark and whole with the night.
Runs to a fret of speed like a racing wheel, Which else were aslumber along with the whole Of the dark, swinging rhythmic instead of a-reel.
Is chafed to anger, bursts into rage like thunder; Which else were a silent grasp that held the heavens Arrested, beating thick with wonder.
Leaps like a fountain of blue sparks leaping In a jet from out of obscurity, Which erst was darkness sleeping.
Runs into streams of bright blue drops, Water and stones and stars, and myriads Of twin-blue eyes, and crops
Of floury grain, and all the hosts of day, All lovely hosts of ripples caused by fretting The Darkness into play.
SNAP-DRAGON
SHE bade me follow to her garden, where The mellow sunlight stood as in a cup Between the old grey walls; I did not dare To raise my face, I did not dare look up, Lest her bright eyes like sparrows should fly in My windows of discovery, and shrill "Sin."
So with a downcast mien and laughing voice I followed, followed the swing of her white dress That rocked in a lilt along: I watched the poise Of her feet as they flew for a s.p.a.ce, then paused to press The gra.s.s deep down with the royal burden of her: And gladly I"d offered my breast to the tread of her.
"I like to see," she said, and she crouched her down, She sunk into my sight like a settling bird; And her bosom couched in the confines of her gown Like heavy birds at rest there, softly stirred By her measured breaths: "I like to see," said she, "The snap-dragon put out his tongue at me."
She laughed, she reached her hand out to the flower, Closing its crimson throat. My own throat in her power Strangled, my heart swelled up so full As if it would burst its wine-skin in my throat, Choke me in my own crimson. I watched her pull The gorge of the gaping flower, till the blood did float
Over my eyes, and I was blind-- Her large brown hand stretched over The windows of my mind; And there in the dark I did discover Things I was out to find: My Grail, a brown bowl twined With swollen veins that met in the wrist, Under whose brown the amethyst I longed to taste. I longed to turn My heart"s red measure in her cup, I longed to feel my hot blood burn With the amethyst in her cup.
Then suddenly she looked up, And I was blind in a tawny-gold day, Till she took her eyes away.
So she came down from above And emptied my heart of love.
So I held my heart aloft To the cuckoo that hung like a dove, And she settled soft
It seemed that I and the morning world Were pressed cup-shape to take this reiver Bird who was weary to have furled Her wings in us, As we were weary to receive her.
This bird, this rich, Sumptuous central grain, This mutable witch, This one refrain, This laugh in the fight, This clot of night, This core of delight.
She spoke, and I closed my eyes To shut hallucinations out.
I echoed with surprise Hearing my mere lips shout The answer they did devise.