Amores

And I have seen her stand all unaware

  Pressing her spread hands over her breasts, as she

  Would crush their mounds on her heart, to kill in

  there

  The pain that is her simple ache for me.

  Her strong hands take my part, the part of a man

  To her; she crushes them into her bosom deep

  Where I should lie, and with her own strong

  span

  Closes her arms, that should fold me in sleep.

  Ah, and she puts her hands upon the wall,

  Presses them there, and kisses her bright hands,

  Then lets her black hair loose, the darkness fall

  About her from her maiden-folded bands.

  And sits in her own dark night of her bitter hair

  Dreaming--God knows of what, for to me she's

  the same

  Betrothed young lady who loves me, and takes care

  Of her womanly virtue and of my good name.

  EXCURSION

  I WONDER, can the night go by;

  Can this shot arrow of travel fly

  Shaft-golden with light, sheer into the sky

  Of a dawned to-morrow,

  Without ever sleep delivering us

  From each other, or loosing the dolorous

  Unfruitful sorrow!

  What is it then that you can see

  That at the window endlessly

  You watch the red sparks whirl and flee

  And the night look through?

  Your presence peering lonelily there

  Oppresses me so, I can hardly bear

  To share the train with you.

  You hurt my heart-beats' privacy;

  I wish I could put you away from me;

  I suffocate in this intimacy,

  For all that I love you;

  How I have longed for this night in the train,

  Yet now every fibre of me cries in pain

  To God to remove you.

  But surely my soul's best dream is still

  That one night pouring down shall swill

  Us away in an utter sleep, until

  We are one, smooth-rounded.

  Yet closely bitten in to me

  Is this armour of stiff reluctancy

  That keeps me impounded.

  So, dear love, when another night

  Pours on us, lift your fingers white

  And strip me naked, touch me light,

  Light, light all over.

  For I ache most earnestly for your touch,

  Yet I cannot move, however much

  I would be your lover.

  Night after night with a blemish of day

  Unblown and unblossomed has withered away;

  Come another night, come a new night, say

  Will you pluck me apart?

  Will you open the amorous, aching bud

  Of my body, and loose the burning flood

  That would leap to you from my heart?

  PERFIDY

  HOLLOW rang the house when I knocked on the door,

  And I lingered on the threshold with my hand

  Upraised to knock and knock once more:

  Listening for the sound of her feet across the floor,

  Hollow re-echoed my heart.

  The low-hung lamps stretched down the road

  With shadows drifting underneath,

  With a music of soft, melodious feet

  Quickening my hope as I hastened to meet

  The low-hung light of her eyes.

  The golden lamps down the street went out,

  The last car trailed the night behind;

  And I in the darkness wandered about

  With a flutter of hope and of dark-shut doubt

  In the dying lamp of my love.

  Two brown ponies trotting slowly

  Stopped at a dim-lit trough to drink:

  The dark van drummed down the distance slowly;

  While the city stars so dim and holy

  Drew nearer to search through the streets.

  A hastening car swept shameful past,

  I saw her hid in the shadow,

  I saw her step to the curb, and fast

  Run to the silent door, where last

  I had stood with my hand uplifted.

  She clung to the door in her haste to enter,

  Entered, and quickly cast

  It shut behind her, leaving the street aghast.

  A SPIRITUAL WOMAN

  CLOSE your eyes, my love, let me make you blind;

  They have taught you to see

  Only a mean arithmetic on the face of things,

  A cunning algebra in the faces of men,

  And God like geometry

  Completing his circles, and working cleverly.

  I'll kiss you over the eyes till I kiss you blind;

  If I can--if any one could.

  Then perhaps in the dark you'll have got what you

  want to find.

  You've discovered so many bits, with your clever

  eyes,

  And I'm a kaleidoscope

  That you shake and shake, and yet it won't come to

  your mind.

  Now stop carping at me.--But God, how I hate you!

  Do you fear I shall swindle you?

  Do you think if you take me as I am, that that will

  abate you

  Somehow?--so sad, so intrinsic, so spiritual, yet so

  cautious, you

  Must have me all in your will and your consciousness--

  I hate you.

  MATING

  ROUND clouds roll in the arms of the wind,

  The round earth rolls in a clasp of blue sky,

  And see, where the budding hazels are thinned,

  The wild anemones lie

  In undulating shivers beneath the wind.

  Over the blue of the waters ply

  White ducks, a living flotilla of cloud;

  And, look you, floating just thereby,

  The blue-gleamed drake stems proud

  Like Abraham, whose seed should multiply.

  In the lustrous gleam of the water, there

  Scramble seven toads across the silk, obscure leaves,

  Seven toads that meet in the dusk to share

  The darkness that interweaves

  The sky and earth and water and live things everywhere.

  Look now, through the woods where the beech-green

  spurts

  Like a storm of emerald snow, look, see

  A great bay stallion dances, skirts

  The bushes sumptuously,

  Going outward now in the spring to his brief deserts.

  Ah love, with your rich, warm face aglow,

  What sudden expectation opens you

  So wide as you watch the catkins blow

  Their dust from the birch on the blue

  Lift of the pulsing wind--ah, tell me you know!

  Ah, surely! Ah, sure from the golden sun

  A quickening, masculine gleam floats in to all

  Us creatures, people and flowers undone,

  Lying open under his thrall,

  As he begets the year in us. What, then, would you

  shun?

  Why, I should think that from the earth there fly

  Fine thrills to the neighbour stars, fine yellow beams

  Thrown lustily off from our full-blown, high

  Bursting globe of dreams,

  To quicken the spheres that are virgin still in the sky.

  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 spi
ll

  The vivid, ah, the fiery surplus of life,

  From off my brimming 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, assaulting

  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 d
ress

  That rocked in a lilt along: I watched the poise

  Of her feet as they flew for a space, then paused to

  press

  The grass 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.

  Again I saw a brown bird hover

  Over the flowers at my feet;

  I felt a brown bird hover

  Over my heart, and sweet

  Its shadow lay on my heart.

  I thought I saw on the clover

  A brown bee pulling apart

  The closed flesh of the clover

  And burrowing in its heart.

  She moved her hand, and again

  I felt the brown bird cover

  My heart; and then

  The bird came down on my heart,

  As on a nest the rover

  Cuckoo comes, and shoves over

  The brim each careful part

  Of love, takes possession, and settles her down,

  With her wings and her feathers to drown

  The nest in a heat of love.

  She turned her flushed face to me for the glint

  Of a moment. "See," she laughed, "if you also

  Can make them yawn." I put my hand to the dint

  In the flower's throat, and the flower gaped wide

  with woe.

  She watched, she went of a sudden intensely still,

  She watched my hand, to see what I would fulfil.

  I pressed the wretched, throttled flower between

  My fingers, till its head lay back, its fangs

  Poised at her. Like a weapon my hand was white

  and keen,

  And I held the choked flower-serpent in its pangs

  Of mordant anguish, till she ceased to laugh,

  Until her pride's flag, smitten, cleaved down to the

  staff.

  She hid her face, she murmured between her lips

  The low word "Don't." I let the flower fall,

  But held my hand afloat towards the slips

  Of blossom she fingered, and my fingers all

  Put forth to her: she did not move, nor I,

  For my hand like a snake watched hers, that could

  not fly.

  Then I laughed in the dark of my heart, I did exult

  Like a sudden chuckling of music. I bade her eyes

  Meet mine, I opened her helpless eyes to consult

  Their fear, their shame, their joy that underlies

  Defeat in such a battle. In the dark of her eyes

  My heart was fierce to make her laughter rise.

  Till her dark deeps shook with convulsive thrills, and

  the dark

  Of her spirit wavered like water thrilled with light;

  And my heart leaped up in longing to plunge its stark

  Fervour within the pool of her twilight,

  Within her spacious soul, to grope in delight.

  And I do not care, though the large hands of revenge

  Shall get my throat at last, shall get it soon,