Amores Read online

Shaper,

  The power of the melting, fusing Force--heat,

  light, all in one,

  Everything great and mysterious in one, swelling and

  shaping the dream in the flesh,

  As it swells and shapes a bud into blossom.

  Oh the terrible ecstasy of the consciousness that I

  am life!

  Oh the miracle of the whole, the widespread, labouring

  concentration

  Swelling mankind like one bud to bring forth the

  fruit of a dream,

  Oh the terror of lifting the innermost I out of the

  sweep of the impulse of life,

  And watching the great Thing labouring through the

  whole round flesh of the world;

  And striving to catch a glimpse of the shape of the

  coming dream,

  As it quickens within the labouring, white-hot metal,

  Catch the scent and the colour of the coming dream,

  Then to fall back exhausted into the unconscious,

  molten life!

  A WINTER'S TALE

  YESTERDAY the fields were only grey with scattered

  snow,

  And now the longest grass-leaves hardly emerge;

  Yet her deep footsteps mark the snow, and go

  On towards the pines at the hills' white verge.

  I cannot see her, since the mist's white scarf

  Obscures the dark wood and the dull orange sky;

  But she's waiting, I know, impatient and cold, half

  Sobs struggling into her frosty sigh.

  Why does she come so promptly, when she must

  know

  That she's only the nearer to the inevitable farewell;

  The hill is steep, on the snow my steps are slow--

  Why does she come, when she knows what I have to

  tell?

  EPILOGUE

  PATIENCE, little Heart.

  One day a heavy, June-hot woman

  Will enter and shut the door to stay.

  And when your stifling heart would summon

  Cool, lonely night, her roused breasts will keep the

  night at bay,

  Sitting in your room like two tiger-lilies

  Flaming on after sunset,

  Destroying the cool, lonely night with the glow of

  their hot twilight;

  There in the morning, still, while the fierce strange

  scent comes yet

  Stronger, hot and red; till you thirst for the

  daffodillies

  With an anguished, husky thirst that you cannot

  assuage,

  When the daffodillies are dead, and a woman of the

  dog-days holds you in gage.

  Patience, little Heart.

  A BABY RUNNING BAREFOOT

  WHEN the bare feet of the baby beat across the grass

  The little white feet nod like white flowers in the

  wind,

  They poise and run like ripples lapping across the

  water;

  And the sight of their white play among the grass

  Is like a little robin's song, winsome,

  Or as two white butterflies settle in the cup of one

  flower

  For a moment, then away with a flutter of wings.

  I long for the baby to wander hither to me

  Like a wind-shadow wandering over the water,

  So that she can stand on my knee

  With her little bare feet in my hands,

  Cool like syringa buds,

  Firm and silken like pink young peony flowers.

  DISCIPLINE

  IT is stormy, and raindrops cling like silver bees to

  the pane,

  The thin sycamores in the playground are swinging

  with flattened leaves;

  The heads of the boys move dimly through a yellow

  gloom that stains

  The class; over them all the dark net of my discipline

  weaves.

  It is no good, dear, gentleness and forbearance, I

  endured too long.

  I have pushed my hands in the dark soil, under the

  flower of my soul

  And the gentle leaves, and have felt where the roots

  are strong

  Fixed in the darkness, grappling for the deep soil's

  little control.

  And there is the dark, my darling, where the roots

  are entangled and fight

  Each one for its hold on the oblivious darkness, I

  know that there

  In the night where we first have being, before we rise

  on the light,

  We are not brothers, my darling, we fight and we

  do not spare.

  And in the original dark the roots cannot keep,

  cannot know

  Any communion whatever, but they bind themselves

  on to the dark,

  And drawing the darkness together, crush from it a

  twilight, a slow

  Burning that breaks at last into leaves and a flower's

  bright spark.

  I came to the boys with love, my dear, but they

  turned on me;

  I came with gentleness, with my heart 'twixt my

  hands like a bowl,

  Like a loving-cup, like a grail, but they spilt it

  triumphantly

  And tried to break the vessel, and to violate my

  soul.

  But what have I to do with the boys, deep down in

  my soul, my love?

  I throw from out of the darkness my self like a flower

  into sight,

  Like a flower from out of the night-time, I lift my

  face, and those

  Who will may warm their hands at me, comfort this

  night.

  But whosoever would pluck apart my flowering shall

  burn their hands,

  So flowers are tender folk, and roots can only hide,

  Yet my flowerings of love are a fire, and the scarlet

  brands

  Of my love are roses to look at, but flames to chide.

  But comfort me, my love, now the fires are low,

  Now I am broken to earth like a winter destroyed,

  and all

  Myself but a knowledge of roots, of roots in the dark

  that throw

  A net on the undersoil, which lies passive beneath

  their thrall.

  But comfort me, for henceforth my love is yours

  alone,

  To you alone will I offer the bowl, to you will I give

  My essence only, but love me, and I will atone

  To you for my general loving, atone as long as I live.

  SCENT OF IRISES

  A FAINT, sickening scent of irises

  Persists all morning. Here in a jar on the table

  A fine proud spike of purple irises

  Rising above the class-room litter, makes me unable

  To see the class's lifted and bended faces

  Save in a broken pattern, amid purple and gold and

  sable.

  I can smell the gorgeous bog-end, in its breathless

  Dazzle of may-blobs, when the marigold glare overcast

  you

  With fire on your cheeks and your brow and your

  chin as you dipped

  Your face in the marigold bunch, to touch and contrast

  you,

  Your own dark mouth with the bridal faint lady-smocks,

  Dissolved on the golden sorcery you should not

  outlast.

  You amid the bog-end's yellow incantation,

  You sitting in the cowslips of the meadow above
,

  Me, your shadow on the bog-flame, flowery may-blobs,

  Me full length in the cowslips, muttering you love;

  You, your soul like a lady-smock, lost, evanescent,

  You with your face all rich, like the sheen of a

  dove.

  You are always asking, do I remember, remember

  The butter-cup bog-end where the flowers rose up

  And kindled you over deep with a cast of gold?

  You ask again, do the healing days close up

  The open darkness which then drew us in,

  The dark which then drank up our brimming cup.

  You upon the dry, dead beech-leaves, in the fire of

  night

  Burnt like a sacrifice; you invisible;

  Only the fire of darkness, and the scent of you!

  --And yes, thank God, it still is possible

  The healing days shall close the darkness up

  Wherein we fainted like a smoke or dew.

  Like vapour, dew, or poison. Now, thank God,

  The fire of night is gone, and your face is ash

  Indistinguishable on the grey, chill day;

  The night has burnt us out, at last the good

  Dark fire burns on untroubled, without clash

  Of you upon the dead leaves saying me Yea.

  THE PROPHET

  AH, my darling, when over the purple horizon shall

  loom

  The shrouded mother of a new idea, men hide their

  faces,

  Cry out and fend her off, as she seeks her procreant

  groom,

  Wounding themselves against her, denying her

  fecund embraces.

  LAST WORDS TO MIRIAM

  YOURS is the shame and sorrow

  But the disgrace is mine;

  Your love was dark and thorough,

  Mine was the love of the sun for a flower

  He creates with his shine.

  I was diligent to explore you,

  Blossom you stalk by stalk,

  Till my fire of creation bore you

  Shrivelling down in the final dour

  Anguish--then I suffered a balk.

  I knew your pain, and it broke

  My fine, craftsman's nerve;

  Your body quailed at my stroke,

  And my courage failed to give you the last

  Fine torture you did deserve.

  You are shapely, you are adorned,

  But opaque and dull in the flesh,

  Who, had I but pierced with the thorned

  Fire-threshing anguish, were fused and cast

  In a lovely illumined mesh.

  Like a painted window: the best

  Suffering burnt through your flesh,

  Undrossed it and left it blest

  With a quivering sweet wisdom of grace: but

  now

  Who shall take you afresh?

  Now who will burn you free

  From your body's terrors and dross,

  Since the fire has failed in me?

  What man will stoop in your flesh to plough

  The shrieking cross?

  A mute, nearly beautiful thing

  Is your face, that fills me with shame

  As I see it hardening,

  Warping the perfect image of God,

  And darkening my eternal fame.

  MYSTERY

  Now I am all

  One bowl of kisses,

  Such as the tall

  Slim votaresses

  Of Egypt filled

  For a God's excesses.

  I lift to you

  My bowl of kisses,

  And through the temple's

  Blue recesses

  Cry out to you

  In wild caresses.

  And to my lips'

  Bright crimson rim

  The passion slips,

  And down my slim

  White body drips

  The shining hymn.

  And still before

  The altar I

  Exult the bowl

  Brimful, and cry

  To you to stoop

  And drink, Most High.

  Oh drink me up

  That I may be

  Within your cup

  Like a mystery,

  Like wine that is still

  In ecstasy.

  Glimmering still

  In ecstasy,

  Commingled wines

  Of you and me

  In one fulfil

  The mystery.

  PATIENCE

  A WIND comes from the north

  Blowing little flocks of birds

  Like spray across the town,

  And a train, roaring forth,

  Rushes stampeding down

  With cries and flying curds

  Of steam, out of the darkening north.

  Whither I turn and set

  Like a needle steadfastly,

  Waiting ever to get

  The news that she is free;

  But ever fixed, as yet,

  To the lode of her agony.

  BALLAD OF ANOTHER OPHELIA

  OH the green glimmer of apples in the orchard,

  Lamps in a wash of rain!

  Oh the wet walk of my brown hen through the stack-yard,

  Oh tears on the window pane!

  Nothing now will ripen the bright green apples,

  Full of disappointment and of rain,

  Brackish they will taste, of tears, when the yellow

  dapples

  Of autumn tell the withered tale again.

  All round the yard it is cluck, my brown hen,

  Cluck, and the rain-wet wings,

  Cluck, my marigold bird, and again

  Cluck for your yellow darlings.

  For the grey rat found the gold thirteen

  Huddled away in the dark,

  Flutter for a moment, oh the beast is quick and

  keen,

  Extinct one yellow-fluffy spark.

  Once I had a lover bright like running water,

  Once his face was laughing like the sky;

  Open like the sky looking down in all its laughter

  On the buttercups, and the buttercups was I.

  What, then, is there hidden in the skirts of all the

  blossom?

  What is peeping from your wings, oh mother

  hen?

  'Tis the sun who asks the question, in a lovely haste

  for wisdom;

  What a lovely haste for wisdom is in men!

  Yea, but it is cruel when undressed is all the blossom,

  And her shift is lying white upon the floor,

  That a grey one, like a shadow, like a rat, a thief, a

  rain-storm,

  Creeps upon her then and gathers in his store.

  Oh the grey garner that is full of half-grown apples,

  Oh the golden sparkles laid extinct!

  And oh, behind the cloud-sheaves, like yellow autumn

  dapples,

  Did you see the wicked sun that winked!

  RESTLESSNESS

  AT the open door of the room I stand and look at

  the night,

  Hold my hand to catch the raindrops, that slant into

  sight,

  Arriving grey from the darkness above suddenly into

  the light of the room.

  I will escape from the hollow room, the box of light,

  And be out in the bewildering darkness, which is

  always fecund, which might

  Mate my hungry soul with a germ of its womb.

  I will go out to the night, as a man goes down to the

  shore

  To draw his net through the surfs thin line, at the

  dawn before

  The sun warms the sea, little, lonely and sad, sifting

  the sobbing tide.

  I will sift
the surf that edges the night, with my net,

  the four

  Strands of my eyes and my lips and my hands and my

  feet, sifting the store

  Of flotsam until my soul is tired or satisfied.

  I will catch in my eyes' quick net

  The faces of all the women as they go past,

  Bend over them with my soul, to cherish the wet

  Cheeks and wet hair a moment, saying: "Is it

  you?"

  Looking earnestly under the dark umbrellas, held

  fast

  Against the wind; and if, where the lamplight

  blew

  Its rainy swill about us, she answered me

  With a laugh and a merry wildness that it was she

  Who was seeking me, and had found me at last to

  free

  Me now from the stunting bonds of my chastity,

  How glad I should be!

  Moving along in the mysterious ebb of the night

  Pass the men whose eyes are shut like anemones in a

  dark pool;

  Why don't they open with vision and speak to me,

  what have they in sight?

  Why do I wander aimless among them, desirous

  fool?

  I can always linger over the huddled books on the

  stalls,

  Always gladden my amorous fingers with the touch

  of their leaves,

  Always kneel in courtship to the shelves in the

  doorways, where falls

  The shadow, always offer myself to one mistress,

  who always receives.

  But oh, it is not enough, it is all no good.

  There is something I want to feel in my running

  blood,

  Something I want to touch; I must hold my face to

  the rain,

  I must hold my face to the wind, and let it explain

  Me its life as it hurries in secret.

  I will trail my hands again through the drenched,

  cold leaves

  Till my hands are full of the chillness and touch of

  leaves,

  Till at length they induce me to sleep, and to forget.

  A BABY ASLEEP AFTER PAIN

  As a drenched, drowned bee

  Hangs numb and heavy from a bending flower,

  So clings to me

  My baby, her brown hair brushed with wet tears

  And laid against her cheek;

  Her soft white legs hanging heavily over my arm

  Swinging heavily to my movement as I walk.

  My sleeping baby hangs upon my life,

  Like a burden she hangs on me.

  She has always seemed so light,

  But now she is wet with tears and numb with pain

  Even her floating hair sinks heavily,

  Reaching downwards;

  As the wings of a drenched, drowned bee

  Are a heaviness, and a weariness.

  ANXIETY

  THE hoar-frost crumbles in the sun,

  The crisping steam of a train

  Melts in the air, while two black birds

  Sweep past the window again.

  Along the vacant road, a red

  Bicycle approaches; I wait

  In a thaw of anxiety, for the boy

  To leap down at our gate.

  He has passed us by; but is it

  Relief that starts in my breast?

  Or a deeper bruise of knowing that still

  She has no rest.

  THE PUNISHER

  I HAVE fetched the tears up out of the little wells,

  Scooped them up with small, iron words,

  Dripping over the runnels.

  The harsh, cold wind of my words drove on, and still

  I watched the tears on the guilty cheek of the boys

  Glitter and spill.

  Cringing Pity, and Love, white-handed, came

  Hovering about the Judgment which stood in my

  eyes,

  Whirling a flame.

  . . . . . . .

  The tears are dry, and the cheeks' young fruits are

  fresh

  With laughter, and clear the exonerated eyes, since

  pain

  Beat through the flesh.

  The Angel of Judgment has departed again to the

  Nearness.

  Desolate I am as a church whose lights are put out.

  And night enters in drearness.

  The fire rose up in the bush and blazed apace,

  The thorn-leaves crackled and twisted and sweated in

  anguish;

  Then God left the place.

  Like a flower that the frost has hugged and let go,

  my head

  Is heavy, and my heart beats slowly, laboriously,

  My strength is shed.

  THE END

  IF I could have put you in my heart,

  If but I could have wrapped you in myself,

  How glad I should have been!

  And now the chart

  Of memory unrolls again to me

  The course of our journey here, before we had to

  part.

  And oh, that you had never, never been

  Some of your selves, my love, that some

  Of your several faces I had never seen!

  And still they come before me, and they go,

  And I cry aloud in the moments that intervene.

  And oh, my love, as I rock for you to-night,

  And have not any longer any hope

  To heal the suffering, or make requite

  For all your life of asking and despair,

  I own that some of me is dead to-night.

  THE BRIDE

  MY love looks like a girl to-night,