Chapter 2

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, But she is old. The plaits that lie along her pillow Are not gold, But threaded with filigree, And uncanny cold.

She looks like a young maiden, since her brow Is smooth and fair, Her cheeks are very smooth, her eyes are closed, She sleeps a rare Still winsome sleep, so still, and so composed.

Nay, but she sleeps like a bride, and dreams her dreams Of perfect things. She lies at last, the darling, in the shape of her dream, And her dead mouth sings By its shape, like the thrushes in clear evenings.

THE VIRGIN MOTHER

MY little love, my darling, You were a doorway to me; You let me out of the confines Into this strange countrie, Where people are crowded like thistles, Yet are shapely and comely to see.

My little love, my dearest Twice have you issued me, Once from your womb, sweet mother, Once from myself, to be Free of all hearts, my darling, Of each heart's home-life free.

And so, my love, my mother, I shall always be true to you; Twice I am born, my dearest, To life, and to death, in you; And this is the life hereafter Wherein I am true.

I kiss you good-bye, my darling, Our ways are different now; You are a seed in the night-time, I am a man, to plough The difficult glebe of the future For God to endow.

I kiss you good-bye, my dearest, It is finished between us here. Oh, if I were calm as you are, Sweet and still on your bier! God, if I had not to leave you Alone, my dear!

Let the last word be uttered, Oh grant the farewell is said! Spare me the strength to leave you Now you are dead. I must go, but my soul lies helpless Beside your bed.

AT THE WINDOW

THE pine-trees bend to listen to the autumn wind as it mutters Something which sets the black poplars ashake with hysterical laughter; While slowly the house of day is closing its eastern shutters.

Further down the valley the clustered tombstones recede, Winding about their dimness the mist's grey cerements, after The street lamps in the darkness have suddenly started to bleed.

The leaves fly over the window and utter a word as they pass To the face that leans from the darkness, intent, with two dark-filled eyes That watch for ever earnestly from behind the window glass.

DRUNK

Too far away, oh love, I know, To save me from this haunted road, Whose lofty roses break and blow On a night-sky bent with a load

Of lights: each solitary rose, Each arc-lamp golden does expose Ghost beyond ghost of a blossom, shows Night blenched with a thousand snows.

Of hawthorn and of lilac trees, White lilac; shows discoloured night Dripping with all the golden lees Laburnum gives back to light

And shows the red of hawthorn set On high to the purple heaven of night, Like flags in blenched blood newly wet, Blood shed in the noiseless fight.

Of life for love and love for life, Of hunger for a little food, Of kissing, lost for want of a wife Long ago, long ago wooed. . . . . . . Too far away you are, my love, To steady my brain in this phantom show That passes the nightly road above And returns again below.

The enormous cliff of horse-chestnut trees Has poised on each of its ledges An erect small girl looking down at me; White-night-gowned little chits I see, And they peep at me over the edges Of the leaves as though they would leap, should I call Them down to my arms; "But, child, you're too small for me, too small Your little charms."

White little sheaves of night-gowned maids, Some other will thresh you out! And I see leaning from the shades A lilac like a lady there, who braids Her white mantilla about Her face, and forward leans to catch the sight Of a man's face, Gracefully sighing through the white Flowery mantilla of lace.

And another lilac in purple veiled Discreetly, all recklessly calls In a low, shocking perfume, to know who has hailed Her forth from the night: my strength has failed In her voice, my weak heart falls: Oh, and see the laburnum shimmering Her draperies down, As if she would slip the gold, and glimmering White, stand naked of gown.

. . . . . .

The pageant of flowery trees above The street pale-passionate goes, And back again down the pavement, Love In a lesser pageant flows.

Two and two are the folk that walk, They pass in a half embrace Of linkèd bodies, and they talk With dark face leaning to face.

Come then, my love, come as you will Along this haunted road, Be whom you will, my darling, I shall Keep with you the troth I trowed.

SORROW

WHY does the thin grey strand Floating up from the forgotten Cigarette between my fingers, Why does it trouble me?

Ah, you will understand; When I carried my mother downstairs, A few times only, at the beginning Of her soft-foot malady,

I should find, for a reprimand To my gaiety, a few long grey hairs On the breast of my coat; and one by one I let them float up the dark chimney.

DOLOR OF AUTUMN

THE acrid scents of autumn, Reminiscent of slinking beasts, make me fear Everything, tear-trembling stars of autumn And the snore of the night in my ear.

For suddenly, flush-fallen, All my life, in a rush Of shedding away, has left me Naked, exposed on the bush.

I, on the bush of the globe, Like a newly-naked berry, shrink Disclosed: but I also am prowling As well in the scents that slink

Abroad: I in this naked berry Of flesh that stands dismayed on the bush; And I in the stealthy, brindled odours Prowling about the lush

And acrid night of autumn; My soul, along with the rout, Rank and treacherous, prowling, Disseminated out.

For the night, with a great breath intaken, Has taken my spirit outside Me, till I reel with disseminated consciousness, Like a man who has died.

At the same time I stand exposed Here on the bush of the globe, A newly-naked berry of flesh For the stars to probe.

THE INHERITANCE

SINCE you did depart Out of my reach, my darling, Into the hidden, I see each shadow start With recognition, and I Am wonder-ridden.

I am dazed with the farewell, But I scarcely feel your loss. You left me a gift Of tongues, so the shadows tell Me things, and silences toss Me their drift.

You sent me a cloven fire Out of death, and it burns in the draught Of the breathing hosts, Kindles the darkening pyre For the sorrowful, till strange brands waft Like candid ghosts.

Form after form, in the streets Waves like a ghost along, Kindled to me; The star above the house-top greets Me every eve with a long Song fierily.

All day long, the town Glimmers with subtle ghosts Going up and down In a common, prison-like dress; But their daunted looking flickers To me, and I answer, Yes!

So I am not lonely nor sad Although bereaved of you, My little love. I move among a kinsfolk clad With words, but the dream shows through As they move.

SILENCE

SINCE I lost you I am silence-haunted, Sounds wave their little wings A moment, then in weariness settle On the flood that soundless swings.

Whether the people in the street Like pattering ripples go by, Or whether the theatre sighs and sighs With a loud, hoarse sigh:

Or the wind shakes a ravel of light Over the dead-black river, Or night's last echoing Makes the daybreak shiver:

I feel the silence waiting To take them all up again In its vast completeness, enfolding The sound of men.

LISTENING

I LISTEN to the stillness of you, My dear, among it all; I feel your silence touch my words as I talk, And take them in thrall.

My words fly off a forge The length of a spark; I see the night-sky easily sip them Up in the dark.

The lark sings loud and glad, Yet I am not loth That silence should take the song and the bird And lose them both.

A train goes roaring south, The steam-flag flying; I see the stealthy shadow of silence Alongside going.

And off the forge of the world, Whirling in the draught of life, Go sparks of myriad people, filling The night with strife.

Yet they never change the darkness Or blench it with noise; Alone on the perfect silence The stars are buoys.

BROODING GRIEF

A YELLOW leaf from the darkness Hops like a frog before me. Why should I start and stand still?

I was watching the woman that bore me Stretched in the brindled darkness Of the sick-room, rigid with will To die: and the quick leaf tore me Back to this rainy swill Of leaves and lamps and traffic mingled before me.

LOTUS HURT BY THE COLD

How many times, like lotus lilies risen Upon the surface of a river, there Have risen floating on my blood the rare Soft glimmers of my hope escaped from prison.

So I am clothed all over with the light And sensitive beautiful blossoming of passion; Till naked for her in the finest fashion The flowers of all my mud swim into sight.

And then I offer all myself unto This woman who likes to love me: but she turns A look of hate upon the flower that burns To break and pour her out its precious dew.

And slowly all the blossom shuts in pain, And all the lotus buds of love sink over To die unopened: when my moon-faced lover, Kind on the weight of suffering, smiles again.

MALADE

THE sick grapes on the chair by the bed lie prone; at the window The tassel of the blind swings gently, tapping the pane, As a little wind comes in. The room is the hollow rind of a fruit, a gourd Scooped out and dry, where a spider, Folded in its legs as in a bed, Lies on the dust, watching where is nothing to see but twilight and walls.

And if the day outside were mine! What is the day But a grey cave, with great grey spider-cloths hanging Low from the roof, and the wet dust falling softly from them Over the wet dark rocks, the houses, and over The spiders with white faces, that scuttle on the floor of the cave! I am choking with creeping, grey confinedness.

But somewhere birds, beside a lake of light, spread wings Larger than the largest fans, and rise in a stream upwards And upwards on the sunlight that rains invisible, So that the birds are like one wafted feather, Small and ecstatic suspended over a vast spread country.

LIAISON

A BIG bud of moon hangs out of the twilight, Star-spiders spinning their thread Hang high suspended, withouten respite Watching us overhead.

Come then under the trees, where the leaf-cloths Curtain us in so dark That here we're safe from even the ermin-moth's Flitting remark.

Here in this swarthy, secret tent, Where black boughs flap the ground, You shall draw the thorn from my discontent, Surgeon me sound.

This rare, rich night! For in here Under the yew-tree tent The darkness is loveliest where I could sear You like frankincense into scent.

Here not even the stars can spy us, Not even the white moths write With their little pale signs on the wall, to try us And set us affright.

Kiss but then the dust from off my lips, But draw the turgid pain From my breast to your bosom, eclipse My soul again.

Waste me not, I beg you, waste Not the inner night: Taste, oh taste and let me taste The core of delight.

TROTH WITH THE DEAD

THE moon is broken in twain, and half a moon Before me lies on the still, pale floor of the sky; The other half of the broken coin of troth Is buried away in the dark, where the still dead lie. They buried her half in the grave when they laid her away; I had pushed it gently in among the thick of her hair Where it gathered towards the plait, on that very last day; And like a moon in secret it is shining there.

My half shines in the sky, for a general sign Of the troth with the dead I pledged myself to keep; Turning its broken edge to the dark, it shines indeed Like the sign of a lover who turns to the dark of sleep. Against my heart the inviolate sleep breaks still In darkened waves whose breaking echoes o'er The wondering world of my wakeful day, till I'm lost In the midst of the places I knew so well before.

DISSOLUTE

MANY years have I still to burn, detained Like a candle flame on this body; but I enshrine A darkness within me, a presence which sleeps contained In my flame of living, her soul enfolded in mine.

And through these years, while I burn on the fuel of life, What matter the stuff I lick up in my living flame, Seeing I keep in the fire-core, inviolate, A night where she dreams my dreams for me, ever the same.

SUBMERGENCE

WHEN along the pavement, Palpitating flames of life, People flicker round me, I forget my bereavement, The gap in the great constellation, The place where a star used to be.

Nay, though the pole-star Is blown out like a candle, And all the heavens are wandering in disarray, Yet when pleiads of people are Deployed around me, and I see The street's long outstretched Milky Way,

When people flicker down the pavement, I forget my bereavement.

THE ENKINDLED SPRING

THIS spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green, Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes, Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes.

I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration, Faces of people streaming across my gaze.

And I, what fountain of fire am I among This leaping combustion of spring? My spirit is tossed About like a shadow buffeted in the throng Of flames, a shadow that's gone astray, and is lost.

REPROACH

HAD I but known yesterday, Helen, you could discharge the ache Out of the cloud; Had I known yesterday you could take The turgid electric ache away, Drink it up with your proud White body, as lovely white lightning Is drunk from an agonised sky by the earth, I might have hated you, Helen.

But since my limbs gushed full of fire, Since from out of my blood and bone Poured a heavy flame To you, earth of my atmosphere, stone Of my steel, lovely white flint of desire, You have no name. Earth of my swaying atmosphere, Substance of my inconstant breath, I cannot but cleave to you.

Since you have drunken up the drear Painful electric storm, and death Is washed from the blue Of my eyes, I see you beautiful. You are strong and passive and beautiful, I come like winds that uncertain hover; But you Are the earth I hover over.

THE HANDS OF THE BETROTHED

HER tawny eyes are onyx of thoughtlessness, Hardened they are like gems in ancient modesty; Yea, and her mouth's prudent and crude caress Means even less than her many words to me.

Though her kiss betrays me also this, this only Consolation, that in her lips her blood at climax clips Two wild, dumb paws in anguish on the lonely Fruit of my heart, ere down, rebuked, it slips.

I know from her hardened lips that still her heart is Hungry for me, yet if I put my hand in her breast She puts me away, like a saleswoman whose mart is Endangered by the pilferer on his quest.

But her hands are still the woman, the large, strong hands Heavier than mine, yet like leverets caught in steel When I hold them; my still soul understands Their dumb confession of what her sort must feel.

For never her hands come nigh me but they lift Like heavy birds from the morning stubble, to settle Upon me like sleeping birds, like birds that shift Uneasily in their sleep, disturbing my mettle.

How caressingly she lays her hand on my knee, How strangely she tries to disown it, as it sinks In my flesh and bone and forages into me, How it stirs like a subtle stoat, whatever she thinks!

And often I see her clench her fingers tight And thrust her fists suppressed in the folds of her skirt; And sometimes, how she grasps her arms with her bright Big hands, as if surely her arms did hurt.

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!