CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Cornell University Ubrary PS 3501.I26P9 1922 3 1924 022 232 072 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022232072 PRIAPUS AND 'THE POOL PRIAPUS AND THE /OOL BY CONRAD AIKEN *-♦-♦♦■•-♦♦♦♦♦+■ DUNSTER HOUSE : CAMBRIDGE 1922 Copyright igz-2. by Conrad ^iken T^O MT WIFE PRIAPUS AND THE POOL . . . Was God, then, so derisive as to shape us In the image of Priapus? . . . ( Priapus ? Who was he ? ) Are we never to be left by our desires. But forever try to warm our foolish hearts At these illusory fires ? (Priapus ! ... do you mean a terminal figure In a garden by a sea?) It is strange I for one so easily conceives A quieter world, in which the flesh and dust Are contented, do not hunger, or thirst, or lust. . . (Priapus . . . Well, I don't know who you mean. Do you intimate God played some trick upon us? I will tell you about a pool that I have seen I It is very old, it is very deep and clear. No one knows how deep it is. The ancient trees are about it in an ancient forest. It is a pool of mysteries ! ) ... It is puzzling, none the less, to understand How God, if he is less or more than flesh. Could have devised for us, walking in his garden. The delicate imperfections of this mesh. . . . (When it is clear, the pool reflects the trees — Look down, and you will see the flight of a bird Among the wavering boughs I But when a breeze Comes slowly from that wood, the pool is stirred, And a shadow like the skeleton of a cloud Shivers like a ghost across it, puffs and passes. . . . When it is still, the sky comes back again, And at the fringes it reflects the grasses.) . . . Must we always, like Priapus in a wood, In the underbrush of our perplexities, Pursue our maidens — pursuer and pursued? . . . (I will not say it is not sometimes troubled ! It is very old ; strange things are imaged there. Out of its depths at night the stars have bubbled ; And into those depths maidens have hung their hair. Leaves have fallen into it without number And never been found again . . . Birds have sung above it in the ancient trees . . . And sometimes raindrops fall upon it, and then There are rings of silver upon it, spreading and fading. Delicately intersecting . . . But if you return again when the sky is cloudless. You will find it clear again, and coldly reflecting . . . Reflecting the silent trees of the ancient forest. And the ancient leaves, ready to fall once more. And the blue sky under the leaves, old and empty, And the savage grasses along the shore. ) . . . Priapus, himself, was never disenchanted . . . Why, then, did God permit us to be haunted By this sense of imperfections'? . . . (But can a pool remember its reflections? That is the thing that troubles me ! Does it remember the cloud that falls upon it, Or the indignation of a tree? . . . Or suppose that once the image of Priapus Fell quivering in ferocious sunlight there As he came suddenly upon it from his forest With fir-cones in his hair — Would the pool, through the silences thereafter. Recall that visitation and be stirred Any more than it would hear and heed the laughter Of a swinging ape, or the singing of a bird?) . . . Was God, then, so derisive as to shape us In the image of Priapus? . . . (It is very old, it is very deep and clear, No one knows how deep it is ! The ancient trees are about it in an ancient forest. It is a pool of mysteries. ) Thus would I shape you, had I the shaping of you — No, not a change ! No atom of you be altered. Of flesh, bone, brain, the calm of your voice, your eyes Perpetually lifting away from me. Thus only. Even though having you thus is not to have you ; Even though having you thus is vainly to love you ; Love you? Adore you ! Even though having you thus Is to have you unconscious of me as light is of darkness. It is enough that I know you and love you. Anguish is good for the soul. I drink and drink it. Bitterness blackens my veins. Rain, wind, sunlight. Cloudily mingle and flash in tumultuous heaven Taking my days. All things revolve about me. Bound to my heart by chords of profoundest music. Tearing my heart with profoundest sorrow ; and you, You in the tumult lightly and dreamily moving. Lifting your hands, or closing your eyes, or laughing Softly a moment out of clear depths of beauty To depths of beauty above you, beneath you, around you— You are the one clear chord, serene, unhaunted. That flamingly draws the dark medley of voices together And gives them a meaning . . . Meaning how bitter for me ! Bitter? ... I stare at the word; for it seems to reproach you. Nor would I reproach. Yet bitter it is to love. To adore your beauty, and know it is not for my hands, Not for my heart, not even, perhaps, for my praise. Bitterest here, that I who adore must be silent. Lock up my heart and forbid it to babble. Easy to suffer that hands, eyes, heart go empty. Starve, be accursed, if once, twice, thrice they might speak In passionate tribute. Harder, to suffer, be dumb, Ape a contentment, laugh; in the so great light You hold for the world, to chatter and smirk and banter, Pretend to wisdom, discuss this, that, and the other — Averting my eyes forever from the one great truth. That you are the world; concealing my one great wisdom. The knowledge that you are beauty and that I love you. Hypocrite always in this, how torn, how bleeding ! Vain that I dream of you as the corybant dancing With chin uplifted, white arms outspread, and the throat-curve Tense in the sunlight. Vain to dream that I hear you Leaning toward me out of your world of azure. Your world of stars, sun, moonlight, clouds and daisies. To ask if I mind that you 'say such things' to me. Say them and see ! . . . Yet no, no, do not say them. Beauty too great it would be, that you should love me. Silence would crumble, the blue world shatter about us. Let me adore, but never betray adoration. Since once to betray is to lose you forever. And you, if the god I forsook, to whom you return me, Sets such a light about me that you must love me — Silence be your part too. Thus may we linger Finger at lip, like children who listen to music, Wary of speech, lest speech, or the shyest of whispers, Rob them of music. Thus may we linger and stare, Dream to the heart of the world, becoming immortal. II The viola ceased its resonant throbbing, the violin. Was silent, the flute was still. The voice of the singer was suddenly hushed. Only The silence seemed to thrill With the last echo of music, hovering over The nodding heads of the listeners bowed and few ; And I became aware of the long light through a window, Of the beauty of silence, of the beauty of you, Never so sharply known as when, beside you, I dared not look to see What thought shone out of your face, or if, like marble, It hid its thought from me. Never so lovely had music seemed as when Its lips were closed, its beauty said. Its arrow of sound lost forever in the singing of the infinite ; And I could not turn my head. In the exquisite azure of silence that descended upon us, Lest, somehow, you should not be there, Or shine too much or little with the momentary beauty Of which I was bitterly aware. It was as if the mingled clear voices of the music. Which the heart for a moment happily knew. Had somehow, in the instant of their cessation, Falling from air, become the beauty of you. . . . white-flamed chord of many notes miraculously sung In the blue universe of silence there for me ! 1 shall remember you thus when you are old and I am saddened ; And continents darken between us, or the silence of the sea. Ill In the moonlight I cry out, in the sunlight I bitterly exclaim, I curse myself, turning my eyes upon my wretchedness ; Lamentable it is to be caught once more in the net of red flame ; Only in the darkness without stars I at last lie still. I have despised the universe that could so scheme to capture The ridiculous sparrow in its futile red net of desire. Now I despise no more. The city shines suddenly with rapture. The sky burns bright, the trees bend their heads in a dream. Voices of delight rise out of the stones beneath my feet. Azure the dusk is, the waters are singing. Wondering I stand While the universe deepens about me. Sword-sharp-sweet, Your voice, that I remember faintly, pierces my heart. light of the clear blue sky, for the first time known ! 1 am the solitary leaf that burns and falls Shrivelled under your immensity, ecstatically blown Down to the dust and darkness. Forget not me. IV When trout swim down Great Ormond Street And sea-gulls cry above them lightly And hawthorns heave cold flagstones up To blossom whitely Against old walls of houses there, Gustily shaking out in moonlight Their country sweetness on sweet air ; And in the sunlight By the green margin of that water Children dip white feet and shout, Casting nets in the braided water To catch the trout : Then I shall hold my breath and die. Swearing I never loved you ; no, 'You were not lovely !' I shall cry, 'I never loved you so.' This is the shape of the leaf, and this of the flower, And this the pale bole of the tree Which watches its bough in a pool of unwavering water In a land we never shall see. The thrush on the bough is silent, the dew falls softly, In the evening is hardly a sound. And the three beautiful pilgrims who come here together Touch lightly the dust of the ground, Touch it with feet that trouble the dust but as wings do. Come shyly together, are still. Like dancers who wait, in a pause of the music, for music The exquisite silence to fill. . . . This is the thought of the first, and this of the second. And this the grave thought of the third : 'Linger we thus for a moment, palely expectant. And silence will end, and the bird 'Sing the pure phrase, sweet phrase, clear phrase in the twilight To fill the blue bell of the world ; And we, who on music so leaflike have drifted together. Leaflike apart shall be whirled 'Into what but the beauty of silence, silence forever^' . . . . . . This is the shape of the tree. And the flower, and the leaf, and the three pale beautiful pilgrims ; This is what you are to me. VI And already the minutes, the hours, the days, Separate thoughts and separate ways, Drift whitely and silently and slowly between us, Drift between us like phantasmal rain and snow. And we, who were thrust for an instant so sharply together. Under changing skies to alien destinies go. Melody heard in the midnight on the wind, Orange poppy of fire seen in a dream. Vainly I try to keep you. How the sky, A great blue wind, with a gigantic laugh. Scorns us apart like chaff ! Like a bird blown to sea am I. O let us hold, amid these immensities, The blinding blaze of the hostile infinite, To the one clear phrase we knew and still may know : Walls rise daily and darkly between us But love has seen us, Wherever we go love too must go. Beautiful, twilight, mysterious, bird-haunted land Seen from the ship, with the far pale shore of sand. And the blue deep hills inviting the stars to rest, Though I shall never set foot there, nor explore you. Nor hear your angelus of bells about me, I shall adore you And know you still the best. VII Let me suppose your ghost sits here beside me — You, who are living still, but dead for me — For friendly talk. And let me suppose you say, — Clasping long hands together in a familiar way. Giving your profile, only, for me to see, — The charming wisdoms, exquisitely said, That often have made me lift in delight my head As for a glimpse of heights, in the sky, unknown ; O let me suppose, for this deliciousness, A quiet room, and we two here alone. Facing in dusk the mirror's watery stare At the pale panelled wall, and the quiet air Which yet not even a candle-flame shall fever; With two blue vases above us, and no clock Whose febrile insistent tiny voice might mock The illusion that we sit here so forever : Only your beauty, and my agitation. To make, of the tranquil scene, a situation. . . . O then perhaps at last I would say to you The words I have often implored myself to say : 'We have found, so many times, what wit can do, 'And charm, and cleverness ! — ^by devious ways Explored each other ; stirred small bells of praise Impersonally and gravely ; still pretending That what we are, to each, can matter little ; Tha^ what we say is every jot and tittle Of the pleasure that we share; that there is ending 'Of our sweet joy as soon as you shall go, Forgetful, smiling, into the world you know And I know not. . . . Now let us turn our eyes Upon each other ! Now let us turn for once. Give up this comedy of appearing wise, 'And see, with the poor courage we command, Sadly, profoundly, without a tremor of hand Or faltering of the long delicious gaze. The wretched beauty our helpless love has given ; And speak at last, in silence, the perfect praise 'So long withheld. O let us together move Unmoving, in the rich knowledge of our love. Touching not hand to hand, since that's forbidden, But wing to wing in our full consciousness, — Stirring the luminous twilight to confess That love like ours no longer can be hidden. 'Thus let us sit, in silence, without motion. While the moment shakes bright leaves above us; then, I would have you say, laying aside your wit. Quite simply: 'It began, in such a way. That afternoon — do you recall the day? — We walked together!' ' . . . A pause, then, exquisite. Infinite, azure, deep as the world is deep ; And I, like one arousing himself from sleep. Would answer : 'And I too, that afternoon. Turning toward you, to tell you of that tree Which held, among its half -fledged leaves, the moon, 'Suddenly felt your beauty over me Falling like light. My eyes filled. I could see Nothing, thenceforth, but you' . . . And silence again ; While, for a moment infinite in duration. Our troubled eyes, across our separation, Found, beneath our blessing, infinite pain. VIII Why is it, as I enter at last the beautiful room, And pause, having opened the door, And turning my eyes from wall to wall in the gloom Find all as it was before, Something, a slow, grave, passionless wave of grief. So whelms me in silence there. That I listen, like one who loses his only belief, In vain to the voiceless air? Did I expect, in my absence, that you had come — You, or a sign from you — To lend a voice to a beauty that else was dumb ? . . . But alas, there is nothing new. The room is the same, the same, there has been no change, The table, the chairs are the same. Nothing has altered, nothing is singing and strange. No hover of light or flame ; And the walls have not, as in an illusion of spring. Blossomed, nor the oaken chair Put forth pale leaves, nor is there a bird to sing In the mystically widened air. Yet if you had come, and stood for an instant dreaming, And thought my name and gone. Leaving behind you hardly a stir of seeming, I should no less have known. For this would have been no longer the hated room Whose walls imprison me now, But the infinite heavens, and one white bough in bloom. And a bird to sing on the bough. IX Dante, walking once by the muddy river, Watched the inscrutable angel pass him by, Shutting her flower-like heart . . . He turned his torment To torture of a world let slowly die. But I shall hide my torment like a fever Within my breast, rejoicing when it feeds Upon my heart ; then only being certain I live, when most my weak heart burns and bleeds. Singular ending ! brutal, perverse, unlooked for. There, by the river, had I turned my head To the shy doubtful exquisite smile you proffered I should not now so slowly, like one dead, Move as among the damned, unknown, unseeing, Crying to heaven with lips that make no sound : Heavily yearning downward, as the clay does. Hapless and hopeless, parted from the ground. X There is nothing moving there, in that desert of silence, Nothing living there, not even a blade of grass. The morning there is as silent as the evening, The nights and days with an equal horror pass. Nothing moving, except the cold, slow shadow Thrown on sand by a boulder, or by the cliff Whose rock not even a lichen comes to cover. To hide — from what? — time's ancient hieroglyph. The sun, at noon, sings like a flaming cymbal Above that waste : but the waste makes no reply. In all that desolation of rock and gravel There is no water, no answer to the sky. Sometimes, perhaps, from other lands more happy, A faint wind, slow, exhausted, ventures there. And loses itself in silence, like a music . . . And then — who knows? — ^beneath that alien air. Which moves mysteriously as memory over Forlorn abysms and peaks of stone and sand. Ghosts of delight awake for a shining moment. And all is troubled, and that desolate land Remembers grass and flowers, and birds that sang there Their miracles of song in lovely trees. And waters that poured, or stood, in dreaming azure. Praising the sky. Perhaps once more it sees The rose, the moon, the pool, in the blue evening, And knows that silence in which one bird will sing Slowly and sleepily his praise of gardens . . . Perhaps once more, for a moment, it remembers spring. XI HE Say that we move together, sorrowful and silent, To one high window which out-tops the sky. And see, in the dusk, not even the crests of beech-trees. Not even, in the wide blue, the flash of a bird. And there, as if we stood alone on a headland, Facing, in the long sunlight, all the sea, Search the blue twilight of infinity; And do not say a word. SHE You are romantic, you exaggerate ; It is a balcony on which we stand. HE This much you grant : we stand there so together. What can it matter, if, questioning thus the starlight, Wedonot trouble to regard each other? . . . Think what you will : be but a consciousness Of night, and music that is sentimental — Night, and the balustrade beneath your hand. Say that you do not love me, never loved. Know naught of love, nor think it worth the knowing . . Yet lies the infinite with all its azure Like a vast sea around us, glares us up For a long moment into terrible nothing. And we are frightened; and we stand and stare Into that shining silence, and are glad. As lovers are, to feel the other there. SHE That is not love that takes but what it finds In a dark hour. If, frightened here, we cling. It is not love, it is a transient thing. . . . Say afterwards : We did not love, but only Together turned for one inscrutable moment, Held in the hand of the infinite, being lonely. This is an intimacy we shall forget. We shall be strangers yet. HE It is the moment in which the infinite Closes about us. Turn, therefore, to me. Call it what name you will, brief let it be. Be conscious, if you must, of loneliness And little else : but if this is not love. Then nothing is. . . . The stars, the night, the music Eddy away beneath us and are gone. . . . We stand here. We are living. We are alone. XII The mirror says : Condole not too profoundly With the pale thing you see yourself to be. Do not recall that dead men sleep so soundly, Nor wanly see The sad procession passing, as a symbol Of your so-much-to-be-pitied state of mind. What you would shut in a cofRn is too nimble To be confined. Look ! as you search these depths, gleefully seeing The atomy spectral coffin darkly pass, Far off flashes a gesture of someone fleeing. Across the glass ; In that small circle of shadow (which I show you Your introspective eye is) goes the ghost Of a delightful grief which seems to know you Yet counts you lost. She turns her dark young beautiful head toward you. Sombrely looks at you, and, least foreseen, Dazzlingly smiles at you, as if to reward you — Most generous queen ! — For the one word not said, the light betrayed not ; And turning upon the dusk is vaguely gone Out of that world of yours she sought not, made not, Nor would have known. O rain of light ! Ten times a day you stand here To watch that brown-eyed ghost of delight escape, Happy in knowing you now forever command here That lovely shape. XIII Fugitive moon, night after night forever Peering through star-walled azure at the far cloud-paven sea, Vainly hoping to find, in that pale mirror Of sphered inconstancy. Some image of your ever-returning worship Dreamed in petalled silver for one flawless instant there ! How like to you am I, who hope forever. When all else says despair. To find at last, for one bewildering moment. In the too-happy sunlight-startled eyes of her I love. Knowledge of me, and of this adoration I dare not tell her of. XIV The moon is an orange-blossom petal Quiveringly held in the cobweb of night : Wind tears the web, and the moon Blows, twirls, lightly falls. The moon is a wrinkled poppy-petal Puffed aloft on one fine thread of gossamer : Scarlet it is, the stars turn pale, Children crook their fingers for the flamboyant moon. The moon is a white rose-petal, the moon Soars like a ship on the long blue wave of night. . . . But why do I speak of the moon on its wave of blue? It is not the moon I would speak of, it is you. XV I shut my eyes, I try to remember you. But as the diver plunging down through sunlight To meet his azure shadow on the wide water Shatters through it and is gone, Thus I, coming suddenly upon your ghost. See it but cannot grasp it : it is lost. I stand in the dark and call you. I am alone. Come to me : stand before me : turn your head Sharply against the light : put forth one hand Holding an amber bead : then let it fall; Say 'It is nothing !' Slowly rise and move, Darkened, against the open window ; against the wall Pause, with the sombre gesture that I love. And slowly say 'I do not understand.' How I have seen you ! How I have drunk of you ! Now, when I most would have you, you escape. Thus is your mouths or thus? I do not know. . . . But see, I ignore you now, bewildering shape. Flee in the darkness from you. . . . And you come Laughing before me, saying 'I love you so !' XVI Now over the grass you come, Gravely you come with a slow step Into the azure world I call my heart : Tardily you approach me. Butterflies of the sun flicker about you — Who could have foreseen it? Moths of the moon at your finger-tips Melt like flakes of snow. Is it not too late that you come? Are you not merely a ghost? Behold, before you once cry my name, Wind whirls us apart like leaves. Never again, after this dream, shall I be happy. In my heart is nothing but the crying of snow. The grass over which I seek you is white with frost. You have left upon it no footstep. I place my most secret thought Like a moon-white bough of magnolia Where perhaps you will find it and remember. It withers, and you do not come. XVII Suddenly, as I gaze at the sombre land in the picture, The bridge, the enchanted stream, the long, long, watery plain. And the dark wood, and the small far houses, and the blue hills Flashing like dolphins under a light like rain; Look I The window has opened ! the sounds come in. Broad, rich, streaming, in the late light of the sun. The whole wide land is a flood of mysterious sound. . . . this is the land where you have gone. Your voice floats up to me from that bridge, I hear The tiny words out of dusk like a gnat-song come — 'Stay ! stay where you are ! You will be happier there ! 1 will at last, perhaps, come home. . . .' O voice, crying the ineffable, face invisible. Beauty intangibly gone like a tracery out of the sky ! Come back! . . . But the window closes. Bridge, stream, houses, hills, Are silent. Small is the picture. None stirs in the world save I. XVIII There was an island in the sea That out of immortal chaos reared Towers of topaz, trees of glass, For maidens adored and warriors feared. Long ago was it lost in the sea ; And now, a thousand fathoms deep. Sea-worms above it whirl their lamps. Crabs on the pale mosaics creep. Voyagers over that haunted sea Hear from the darkness under the keel A sound that is not wave or foam, Nor do they only hear, but feel The timbers quiver, as eerily comes Out of the waters an elfin singing Of voices happy as none can be. And bells an ethereal anthem ringing. Thereafter, where they go or come. They will be silent, they have heard Out of the infinite of the soul An incommunicable word. Thereafter, they are as lovers who Over an infinite brightness lean : 'It is Atlantis !' all their speech, 'To lost Atlantis have we been.' XIX See, as the carver carves a rose, A wing, a toad, a serpent's eye, In cruel granite, to disclose The soft things that in hardness lie, So this one, taking up his heart. Which time and change had made a stone. Carved out of it with dolorous art. Laboring yearlong and alone. The thing there hidden — rose, toad, wing"? A frog's hand on a lily pad? Bees in a cobweb? — No such thing ! A girl's head was the thing he had. Small, shapely, richly crowned with hair. Drowsy, with eyes half closed, as they Looked through you and beyond you, clear To something farther than Cathay: Saw you, yet counted you not worth The seeing, thinking all the while How, flower-like, beauty comes to birth ; And thinking this, began to smile. Medusa ! For she could not see The world she turned to stone and ash. Only herself she saw, a tree That flowered beneath a lightning-flash. Thus dreamed her face — a lovely thing, To worship, weep for, or to break. . . . Better to carve a claw, a wing, Or, if the heart provide, a snake. XX Fade, then, — ^die, depart, and come no more — You, whose beauty I abhor — Out of my brain Take back your voice that lodges there in pain. Tear out your thousand golden roots That thrust soft tentacles in my heart But bear no fruits. Now like an exquisite but sterile tree Your beauty grows in me And feeds on light Its lifted arms of leaves and blossoms white. Come birds, come bees. And marry flower with flower that it may bear Like other trees. Or else let hatred like a lightning come. And flash, and strike it numb, And strew on rock These singing leaves, that, singing, seem to mock. Thus let my heart once more be naked stone. Bare under wind and hard with grief. And leave not in a single crevice A single leaf. XXI First the white crocus, and then the purple ; then the rain Daylong and nightlong lashing the bitter garden, Blurring, by day, the light on the window-pane. Beating by night with talons. And after the rain A cold clear day, no crocus left; and shrill In the high poplar a ruffled robin singing; And, in the cold grass, one clear daffodil. Downcast, in pale light swinging. First the red tulip, and then the white ; and then the wind Daylong and nightlong curving long poplar boughs To green sonorous arcs against blue heaven. The new leaves baffled. And after that carouse A steamy fog that clings to tree and bush And hides the shattered tulip. . . . Sad is he Who slowly at daybreak walks in the bitter garden That ruin to see. A day? A year? . . . They come, they go, like weather, Give leaves or take them. Here alone I move Slowly in this small garden, deeply regarding The flower, the tree, the grass, the weed, I love ; Dig here, plant there, or with a sickle cut The too-thick clover. But whether there or here Have with me, for my calendar, crocus, tulip, Daffodil, robin; and they say 'a year.' A year ! And still you stand there, where you stood, Tall, lovely, young; and I, who saw you, turn How many leaves back in my book of days. As then I yearned so now, so still I yearn For all the foolish things youth took with him, When, so few springs ago, he sighed and went From one so heavy with thought, so dark, as I, Poor malcontent. And now in the humble garden I walk in wonder Of all that in few days you did to me. With a light laugh, a shy slight trick of hands, A change of depth in the eyes too swift to see. And your first words, sombrely said, yet flaming, How sound they still ! . . . 'That's lovely, isn't it !' . . . Bitter with presage were they, for they struck At once the sharpest chord, still exquisite. Doomed brightly, darkly doomed, doomed from the first ! And sleep became but the gateway to a dream Of a wise intimacy I never knew. . . . Now must I seek you in a garden gleam Of tulip petals fallen, crocus withered. Lilacs in bud, a sickle's edge. At night I dream we walk and talk beneath low lime-trees Palely in flower, as under an arch of light. The petals, greener than golden, fall or hover. Blow, twirl, float, and litter with flame the ground, The air is alight with pollen. And there we loiter, Laughing deliciously, and hear the slow sound Of our two voices, happily weaving together A harmony simple in seeming but strange beyond thought : The words we say are beautiful, but have no meaning; And as I wake and repeat them, they are nought. First the white crocus and then the purple ; then the rain Drawing its grey diagonals across the garden, Wrinkling, by day, the light on the window-pane, Scratching by night with claws . . . And after the rain The unfamiliar silence in which we wake. And seek, no longer storm-and-f ever-tossed, In the cool dark for a pale brightness dreamed of : And find, at last, the memory of something lost. XXII Bitter nasturtium, pale pink phlox, scarlet william Wrung like blood-drops from the suffering earth, Dance in the southwest wind in the lamentable garden: They are poor words to stammer your worth ! — Or curses for you ; or, in the colorless moonlight, Black cries and imprecations ; with slow hands I tear the offending heads off, strip them, smell them, And crush them under my heel against harsh sands. Come out of the earth like these with earth upon you, Hands soiled with loam, lips flecked, the sunset cheek Fouled with black webs and leaves, and the rich hair Inhabited by spiders. I would speak Not then as one fool to another babbles. But with a natural tongue, as leaf to leaf Nasturtium touches phlox in the dewy morning, And the strong stems, growing together, know no grief. But you are poisonous, dyed deep in death. Black at the heart ! Grow here, and you will spread A low rank mist that, snake-like amid the flowers. Will coil, delighting them, and leave them dead. But ah to have you like that snake pass by. Drawing against my palms your viscous scales Of venomous colors and translucent brightness ! There My blossoms fall upon you, my strong leaf fails. XXIII You are indifferent : think not of me : Lead a wild life of days strangely begot, Days that rise from a different source than mine, Days that come up like giants out of the sea. How should you think of me ? How should you think of one you never knew, Who never disclosed his heart to you? Now to a picture stoop you, now to an image, Now to an idol you abase your knees, Walk in a dim light praying, touch your heart With tears of imagined gods. You sigh for these, O foolish one ! and seas Send up star-bearing giants of days to you. Rich in all lovely things ; you knew What words I said to you by a tall window Where the sunlight came in mottled through a vine : But you forget them. And the blue giants come Bearing vast days how different from mine, Globed, perfect, light as wine, In which young gods like tyrannous dancers move To music that is the voice of love. Sleep, if you remember me not in waking; dream Of one word lightly and profoundly said By him you had forgotten, whose dim face Is dimmer than faces of remembered dead : Half wake, and turn your head. Wondering who he was and what he meant. Then I shall be content. XXIV See now, after all these days I have the strength, Yes, now at length. To drive you forth, pale ghost ! Ah now I come With flowers for whips and my dull heart for drum And flog you out of the shadow of my brain. Laughing whip you with flowers from vein to vein. Shout, should a petal Upon your rich hair settle, Care not if red stains mark, or bruises dark. Your flesh that was the integument of you. Heed not the imagined cries. Nor tears, if tears you have, that light your eyes. Go, come not hither again, proud sorceress. Idolatrous self-worshipper ! Into the tabernacle of my heart and brain Come not again. For now I rid me of the imperfect you. You, halt when you would dance, you, dumb when you would sing, You, dark when starlike you would shine ! Now a more perfect idol shall be mine, Now the bright goddess shall I bring. Not garlanded with flowers nor bright with gems Nor gay with diadems, But her more holy who is bom of dream And who like light itself shall gleam. She whom a vision shapes Obeys not death nor change, nor ever escapes Her worshipper, though dull of heart he be. So now I make her Out of the finest azure and pale fire, To worship, not desire. And none but I shall take her. You were the last and greatest of those few In whose imperfect flesh I thought I knew Beauty : it burned in you Briefly and brightly. Now that it dims, in pity I whip you forth. Scourge you with flowers that it may hurt you less — For you have still your loveliness — And dream the dream that I shall worship nightly. come not, lest against this perfect tree You, who were once so dear to me. And still, alas, perhaps too dear. Must by my zealous hands be crucified, Nailed with strong nails against that tree immortal : To mark the portal Wherethrough, no longer human. At last, at last all flesh-forgetful, 1 pass, to make a dream my bride. Come not ! Lest when I find you, Weeping I bind you, Bandage your eyes, not lest they see But lest they injure me : Chain the strong hands and feet that were my joy Not that I hate them but lest they destroy : And dumbly watch you die, to praise that beauty To which henceforth, I swear it by my love, I owe all duty. XXV Madonna gold and lilac, Byzantine, Born of the shining vision, sequestered queen To guide men's hearts and hands In whatever lands : Madonna of the eyes wide open, the white hands slender. Madonna of the young smile tremulous and tender, And the dark hair turned in wings aside From the brow white and wide : Madonna tall, standing as one who listens To a far grave music, music that murmurs and glistens With a secret perhaps unguessed And comes to rest : Madonna tall, standing as one who lingers To hear a melody rise from invisible fingers. Fingers invisible to me Who only see How, in your eyes, the light for a moment changes. Darkening to an abysm which estranges Infinities apart Me from your heart : Madonna of the woman's body, the face of a child. Madonna of whom only the lips have ever smiled. Flowers to conceal the secret tear None see or hear : Not of the rays of the moon, could they be cloven, Could such a beauty of flesh as yours be woven j Not with so subtle a mesh As the clear flesh Which the soft wandering dream of you keeps bright As with the singing imprisoned bird of light : Not out of the beauty of dust or air Comes aught so fair. I stand bewildered, I stand in silence before you. Knowing only the one thing, that I adore you ; Fearing so much that speech Will never reach. Nor these hands touch you, nor my terrible love arouse you. Nor the dark house of the earth I inhabit house you ; O better it were in sorrow to cry To a birdless sky Than with a voice or silence to importune You, silent, inscrutable, as to the sea the dune, Which gives to the sea's hands Not self but sands. It is not you I touch ! . . . O strange cool being. Even in whose laughter falls the shadow of someone fleeing. Bewildered denial in the caress. No in the yes, How shall we love'? For we are worlds asunder, Between us the demon chasms wail and thunder. . . . Ah terrible destiny If you should be Agonized victim of the perverse gods who shape you, Destined forever to see your soul escape you, As one who remembers, yet remembers not. Something forgot : Desiring to give to me, to see me live. Your soul, yet having, alas, no soul to give ; Desiring to give, that you Might so live too; And waiting thus in a tragic dumb confusion. Weaving a shining mystery of your seclusion, Miraculous beauty of mask; Yet when I ask For more than the mask, for the secret light behind. Confessing — ah, what horror ! — that you are blind. Here, then, our destiny takes us And binds and breaks us. Madonna silver and lilac, Byzantine, Awakened half from dream, still starred with sleep. Rose of the eternal, you whom love will madden. Pitiless love that will not let you weep. Heartless madonna, whose love will kill me, giving nothing, Alas, that I may keep. Trinting House of William Ediuin Rudge, Mount Vernon, Nenv York. Four hundred and twenty-fi've copies printed, of nuhich fifty are on hand-made paper, numbered and: signed.