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sources, the darkest outgoings,

  when it has struck home to her, like a death, "this

  is _him!_"

  she has no part in it, no part whatever,

  it is the terrible _other_,

  when she knows the fearful _other flesh_, ah, dark-

  ness unfathomable and fearful, contiguous and

  concrete,

  when she is slain against me, and lies in a heap

  like one outside the house,

  when she passes away as I have passed away

  being pressed up against the _other_,

  then I shall be glad, I shall not be confused with

  her,

  I shall be cleared, distinct, single as if burnished

  in silver,

  having no adherence, no adhesion anywhere,

  one clear, burnished, isolated being, unique,

  and she also, pure, isolated, complete,

  two of us, unutterably distinguished, and in

  unutterable conjunction.

  Then we shall be free, freer than angels, ah,

  perfect.

  VIII

  AFTER that, there will only remain that all men

  detach themselves and become unique,

  that we are all detached, moving in freedom more

  than the angels,

  conditioned only by our own pure single being,

  having no laws but the laws of our own being.

  Every human being will then be like a flower,

  untrammelled.

  Every movement will be direct.

  Only to be will be such delight, we cover our faces

  when we think of it

  lest our faces betray us to some untimely fiend.

  Every man himself, and therefore, a surpassing

  singleness of mankind.

  The blazing tiger will spring upon the deer, un-

  dimmed,

  the hen will nestle over her chickens,

  we shall love, we shall hate,

  but it will be like music, sheer utterance,

  issuing straight out of the unknown,

  the lightning and the rainbow appearing in us

  unbidden, unchecked,

  like ambassadors.

  We shall not look before and after.

  We shall _be_, _now_.

  We shall know in full.

  We, the mystic NOW.

  ZENNOR

  _AUTUMN RAIN_

  THE plane leaves

  fall black and wet

  on the lawn;

  The cloud sheaves

  in heaven's fields set

  droop and are drawn

  in falling seeds of rain;

  the seed of heaven

  on my face

  falling--I hear again

  like echoes even

  that softly pace

  Heaven's muffled floor,

  the winds that tread

  out all the grain

  of tears, the store

  harvested

  in the sheaves of pain

  caught up aloft:

  the sheaves of dead

  men that are slain

  now winnowed soft

  on the floor of heaven;

  manna invisible

  of all the pain

  here to us given;

  finely divisible

  falling as rain.

  _FROST FLOWERS_

  IT is not long since, here among all these folk

  in London, I should have held myself

  of no account whatever,

  but should have stood aside and made them way

  thinking that they, perhaps,

  had more right than I--for who was I?

  Now I see them just the same, and watch them.

  But of what account do I hold them?

  Especially the young women. I look at them

  as they dart and flash

  before the shops, like wagtails on the edge of a

  pool.

  If I pass them close, or any man,

  like sharp, slim wagtails they flash a little aside

  pretending to avoid us; yet all the time

  calculating.

  They think that we adore them--alas, would it

  were true!

  Probably they think all men adore them,

  howsoever they pass by.

  What is it, that, from their faces fresh as spring,

  such fair, fresh, alert, first-flower faces,

  like lavender crocuses, snowdrops, like Roman

  hyacinths,

  scyllas and yellow-haired hellebore, jonquils, dim

  anemones,

  even the sulphur auriculas,

  flowers that come first from the darkness, and feel

  cold to the touch,

  flowers scentless or pungent, ammoniacal almost;

  what is it, that, from the faces of the fair young

  women

  comes like a pungent scent, a vibration beneath

  that startles me, alarms me, stirs up a repulsion?

  They are the issue of acrid winter, these first-

  flower young women;

  their scent is lacerating and repellant,

  it smells of burning snow, of hot-ache,

  of earth, winter-pressed, strangled in corruption;

  it is the scent of the fiery-cold dregs of corruption,

  when destruction soaks through the mortified,

  decomposing earth,

  and the last fires of dissolution burn in the bosom

  of the ground.

  They are the flowers of ice-vivid mortification,

  thaw-cold, ice-corrupt blossoms,

  with a loveliness I loathe;

  for what kind of ice-rotten, hot-aching heart

  must they need to root in!

  _CRAVING FOR SPRING_

  I WISH it were spring in the world.

  Let it be spring!

  Come, bubbling, surging tide of sap!

  Come, rush of creation!

  Come, life! surge through this mass of mortifica-

  tion!

  Come, sweep away these exquisite, ghastly first-

  flowers,

  which are rather last-flowers!

  Come, thaw down their cool portentousness,

  dissolve them:

  snowdrops, straight, death-veined exhalations of

  white and purple crocuses,

  flowers of the penumbra, issue of corruption,

  nourished in mortification,

  jets of exquisite finality;

  Come, spring, make havoc of them!

  I trample on the snowdrops, it gives me pleasure

  to tread down the jonquils,

  to destroy the chill Lent lilies;

  for I am sick of them, their faint-bloodedness,

  slow-blooded, icy-fleshed, portentous.

  I want the fine, kindling wine-sap of spring,

  gold, and of inconceivably fine, quintessential

  brightness,

  rare almost as beams, yet overwhelmingly potent,

  strong like the greatest force of world-balancing.

  This is the same that picks up the harvest of wheat

  and rocks it, tons of grain, on the ripening wind;

  the same that dangles the globe-shaped pleiads of

  fruit

  temptingly in mid-air, between a playful thumb and

  finger;

  oh, and suddenly, from out of nowhere, whirls

  the pear-bloom,

  upon us, and apple- and almond- and apricot-

  and quince-blossom,

  storms and cumulus clouds of all imaginable

  blossom

  about our bewildered faces,

  though we do not worship.

  I wish it were spring

  cunningly blowing on the fallen
sparks, odds and

  ends of the old, scattered fire,

  and kindling shapely little conflagrations

  curious long-legged foals, and wide-eared calves,

  and naked sparrow-bubs.

  I wish that spring

  would start the thundering traffic of feet

  new feet on the earth, beating with impatience.

  I wish it were spring, thundering

  delicate, tender spring.

  I wish these brittle, frost-lovely flowers of pas-

  sionate, mysterious corruption

  were not yet to come still more from the still-

  flickering discontent.

  Oh, in the spring, the bluebell bows him down for

  very exuberance,

  exulting with secret warm excess,

  bowed down with his inner magnificence!

  Oh, yes, the gush of spring is strong enough

  to toss the globe of earth like a ball on a water-jet

  dancing sportfully;

  as you see a tiny celluloid ball tossing on a squint

  of water

  for men to shoot at, penny-a-time, in a booth at a

  fair.

  The gush of spring is strong enough

  to play with the globe of earth like a ball on a

  fountain;

  At the same time it opens the tiny hands of the

  hazel

  with such infinite patience.

  The power of the rising, golden, all-creative sap

  could take the earth

  and heave it off among the stars, into the in-

  visible;

  the same sets the throstle at sunset on a bough

  singing against the blackbird;

  comes out in the hesitating tremor of the primrose,

  and betrays its candour in the round white straw-

  berry flower,

  is dignified in the foxglove, like a Red-Indian

  brave.

  Ah come, come quickly, spring!

  Come and lift us towards our culmination, we

  myriads;

  we who have never flowered, like patient cactuses.

  Come and lift us to our end, to blossom, bring us

  to our summer

  we who are winter-weary in the winter of the world.

  Come making the chaffinch nests hollow and cosy,

  come and soften the willow buds till they are

  puffed and furred,

  then blow them over with gold.

  Come and cajole the gawky colt's-foot flowers.

  Come quickly, and vindicate us

  against too much death.

  Come quickly, and stir the rotten globe of the

  world from within,

  burst it with germination, with world anew.

  Come now, to us, your adherents, who cannot

  flower from the ice.

  All the world gleams with the lilies of Death the

  Unconquerable,

  but come, give us our turn.

  Enough of the virgins and lilies, of passionate,

  suffocating perfume of corruption,

  no more narcissus perfume, lily harlots, the blades

  of sensation

  piercing the flesh to blossom of death.

  Have done, have done with this shuddering,

  delicious business

  of thrilling ruin in the flesh, of pungent passion,

  of rare, death-edged ecstasy.

  Give us our turn, give us a chance, let our hour

  strike,

  O soon, soon!

  Let the darkness turn violet with rich dawn.

  Let the darkness be warmed, warmed through to a

  ruddy violet,

  incipient purpling towards summer in the world

  of the heart of man.

  Are the violets already here!

  Show me! I tremble so much to hear it, that even

  now

  on the threshold of spring, I fear I shall die.

  Show me the violets that are out.

  Oh, if it be true, and the living darkness of the

  blood of man is purpling with violets,

  if the violets are coming out from under the rack

  of men, winter-rotten and fallen

  we shall have spring.

  Pray not to die on this Pisgah blossoming with

  violets.

  Pray to live through.

  If you catch a whiff of violets from the darkness of

  the shadow of man

  it will be spring in the world,

  it will be spring in the world of the living;

  wonderment organising itself, heralding itself with

  the violets,

  stirring of new seasons.

  Ah, do not let me die on the brink of such

  anticipation!

  Worse, let me not deceive myself.

  ZENNOR

  PRINTED AT

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  WEST NORWOOD

  LONDON

  Look!

  We

  Have

  Come

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