Part 2

Yet, oh my Swan, if love have wings, As the gods tell us, you were love Who took and broke me with those wings. I, weak, and being far gone in love Let blushless things be breathed and done-- Things flowered out now in bitter fruit That once done are no more undone Than last year's frost and last year's fruit.

For what has come of love and me Who knew the first joy that loving is? Where has love led and beckoned me But to the end where nothing is? I have seen my blood beat out again Red in the hands of all my line, My sin has swelled and flowered again Corrupt and fierce through Sparta's line. Bred through me--bred through delicate hands And wandering eyes and wanton lips, Sighing after strange flesh as sighed these lips, Straying after new sin as strayed these hands. Mother of Helen! She whose breasts To new desires unshaped the world; Above Troy's summit towered these breasts, Helen who wantoned with the world! Helen is dead (she had love enough To laugh at doom and mock at shrine) And Clytemnestra, quiet enough To-night beneath Apollo's shrine. And I am left, the source, the spring Of all their madness. They are dead While I still sit here, the old spring That fouled them flows above the dead.

But I have paid. I have borne enough. I am very old in love and woe. For all souls these things are enough-- Who have known love are the friends of woe. There those who love, and who escape, There are those who love and do not die. I loved, and there was no escape, Long since I died and daily die. And death alone makes hate and love Friends with each other and with sleep... All's quiet here that once was love, This that is left belongs to sleep.

THE HAREBELL.

You give no portent of impermanence Though before sun goes you are long gone hence, Your bright, inherited crown Withered and fallen down.

It seems that your blue immobility Has been for ever, and must for ever be. Man seems the unstable thing, Fevered and hurrying.

So free of joy, so prodigal of tears, Yet he can hold his fevers seventy years, Out-wear sun, rain and frost, By which you are soon lost.

WORDS.

Is it not brave to be a king, Techelles!-- Usumcasane and Theridamas, Is it not passing brave to be a king, And ride in triumph through Persepolis?--MARLOWE.

Bring the great words that scourge the thundering line With lust and slaughter--words that reek of doom And the lost battle and the ruined shrine;-- Words dire and black as midnight on a tomb; Hushed speech of waters on the lip of gloom; Huge sounds of death and plunder in the night;-- Words whose vast plumes above the ages meet, Girdling the lost, dark centuries in their flight, The slave of their unfetterable feet.

Bring words as pure as rills of earliest Spring In some far cranny of the hillside born To stitch again the earth's green habiting;-- Words lonely as the long, blue fields of morn;-- Words on the wistful lyre of winds forlorn To the sad ear of grief from distance blown; Thin bleat of fawn and airy babble of birds; Sounds of bright water slipping on the stone Where the thrilled fountain pipes to woodland words.

Bring passionate words from noontide's slumber roused, To slake the amorous lips of love with fruit, Dripping with honey, and with syrups drowsed To draw bee-murmurs from the dreaming lute-- Words gold and mad and headlong in pursuit Of laughter; words that are too sweet to say And fade, unsaid, upon some rose's mouth;-- Words soft as winds that ever blow one way, The summer way, the long way from the south.

For such words have high lineage, and were known Of Milton once, whose heart on theirs still beats; Marlowe hurled forth huge stars to make them crown; They are stained still with the dying lips of Keats; As queens they trod the cloak in Shakespeare's streets; Pale hands of Shelley gently guard their flame; Chatterton's heart was burst upon their spears: Their dynasty unbroken, and their name Music in all men's mouths for all men's ears.

But now they are lost, their lordliest 'scutcheon stained; Upon their ruined walls no trumpet rings; Their shrines defiled, their sacraments profaned: Men crown the crow, they have given the jackal wings. Slaves wear the peplum, beggars ride as kings. They couple foolish words and look for birth Of mighty emperor, Christ or Avatar, They mate with slaves from whom no king comes forth; No child is theirs who follow not the Star.

_Lyric Apollo! Thou art worshipped still! We quest for beauty on Thy hills like hounds, Let these poor rhymers babble as they will, Filling their pipes with shrill and crazy sounds. Poets still praise Thee, music still abounds, And Beauty knows the hour of Thy return, For the Gods live albeit temples burn, Suffer the fools their folly, let them be, Wreathing each other with their wreaths of straw, Trailing their pageants of the mud; but we Await Thy laurel on our brows with awe. And if Thou wreathe not, let us still be found Thy slaves: Thou dost not bind unworthy things. Them hast Thou chained not. Better heads uncrowned Than mock regalia of the rabble's kings!_

SHRIFT.

I am not true, but you would pardon this If you could see the tortured spirit take Its place beside you in the dark, and break Your daily food of love and kindliness. You'd guess the bitter thing that treachery is, Furtive and on its guard, asleep, awake, Fearing to sin, yet fearing to forsake, And daily giving Christ the Judas kiss.

But piteous amends I make each day To recompense the evil with the good; With double pang I play the double part Of all you trust and all that I betray. What long atonement makes my penitent blood, To what sad tryst goes my unfaithful heart!

THE THIEF OF BEAUTY.

The mind is Beauty's thief, the poet takes The golden spendthrift's trail among the blooms Where she stands tossing silver in the lakes, And twisting bright swift threads on airy looms. Her ring the poppy snatches, and the rose With laughter plunders all her gusty plumes. He steals behind her, gathering, as she goes Heedless of summer's end certain and soon,-- Of winter rattling at the door of June.

When Beauty lies hand-folded, pale and still, Forsaken of her lovers and her lords, And winter keeps cold watch upon the hill Then he lets fall his bale of coloured words. At frosty midnight June shall rise in flame, Move at his magic with her bells and birds; The rose will redden as he speaks her name, He shall release earth's frozen bosom there, And with great words shall cuff the whining air!

FORGOTTEN DEAD, I SALUTE YOU.

Dawn has flashed up the startled skies, Night has gone out beneath the hill Many sweet times; before our eyes Dawn makes and unmakes about us still The magic that we call the rose. The gentle history of the rain Has been unfolded, traced and lost By the sharp finger-tips of frost; Birds in the hawthorn build again; The hare makes soft her secret house; The wind at tourney comes and goes, Spurring the green, unharnessed boughs; The moon has waxed fierce and waned dim: He knew the beauty of all those Last year, and who remembers him?

Love sometimes walks the waters still, Laughter throws back her radiant head; Utterly beauty is not gone, And wonder is not wholly dead. The starry, mortal world rolls on; Between sweet sounds and silences, With new, strange wines her beakers brim He lost his heritage with these Last year, and who remembers him?

None remember him: he lies In earth of some strange-sounding place, Nameless beneath the nameless skies, The wind his only chant, the rain The only tears upon his face; Far and forgotten utterly By living man. Yet such as he Have made it possible and sure For other lives to have, to be; For men to sleep content, secure. Lip touches lip and eyes meet eyes Because his heart beats not again: His rotting, fruitless body lies That sons may grow from other men.

He gave, as Christ, the life he had-- The only life desired or known; The great, sad sacrifice was made For strangers; this forgotten dead Went out into the night alone. There was his body broken for you, There was his blood divinely shed That in the earth lie lost and dim. Eat, drink, and often as you do, For whom he died, remember him.

MADALA GOES BY THE ORPHANAGE.

Unaware of its terror, And but half aware Of the world's beauty near her-- Of sunlight on the stones, And trembling birds in the square, Lightly went Madala-- A rose blown suddenly From Spring's gay mouth; part of the Spring was she. Warmed to her delicate bones, Cool in its linen her skin, Her hair up-combed and curled, Lightly she flowered on the sin And pain of the Spring-struck world. Down the street went crazy men, The winter misery of their blood Budding in new pain While beggars whined beside her, While the streets' daughters eyed her,-- Poor flowers that kept midsummer With desperate bloom, and thrust Stale rose at each newcomer, And crime and hunger and lust Raged in the noisy dust. Lightly went Madala, Unshaken still of that spell, Coral beads and jade to buy, While her thoughts roamed easily-- Thoughts like bees in lavender,-- Thoughts gay and fragile as a robin's shell. Till suddenly she had come To grim age-stubborned wall Behind whose mask of bars Starts up in shame the Foundlings' Hospital.* At the gates to watch her pass A caged thing eyed her dumb, Most mercifully unaware Of its own hurt, but Madala Stopped short of Spring that day. The air grew pinched and wan, A hand came over the sun, Birds huddled, stones went grey. Her lace and linen white Seemed but her body's sin, Her flesh unscarred and bright Burnt like a leper's skin.

Her mouth was stale with bread Flung her by strangers, she was fed, Housed, fathered by the State, and she had grown A thing belonging to, and loved by, none. Though the shut mouth said no word, From the caged thing she heard, "Who has wronged me, that this Spring "Gives me nothing and you everything, "Who alike were made, "Who beckon the same dreams? "You buy coral and jade, "I sew long hungry seams "To pay for charity..." Then Madala's heart, afraid, Cried the first selfish cry: "Is it my fault? Can I "Help what the world has done? "Can the flower in the shade "Blame the flower in the sun?" Then quick the caged thing said, As if to ask pardon that its words had made Madala's spring so spoiled for her that day: "But there's a way, a way! "If flowers would share their Spring "There'd be sunshine enough for all the flowers. "Such sunshine you could bring, "Such joy that swings and flies "With posies your hours through, "So just beyond my hours. "If I could walk with you-- "Not in pitiful two by two "Flayed by free children's eyes, "Your sister for an hour to be, "It would double joy and woo "Spring back to you, and more than Spring to me."

Then something quaked in Madala, Quaked with magic, quaked with awe. Love-quickening, she became a part Of this caged thing, she was aware Of strange lips tugging at her heart. So clear the way was! Tenderer Grew her eyes, and as they grew, Back to the flowers rushed the dew, The earth filled out with the sun, The cold birds in the square Unbundled and preened upon Their twigs in the softening air; The cold wind dwindled and dropped, And love and the world were one. Nearer drew Madala, At the dumb thing she smiled, And Spring that a child had stopped Came back from the eyes of a child.

* Guilford Street, London, the gates of which face the street.

OBSESSION.

I will not have roses in my room again, Nor listen to sonnets of Michael Angelo To-night nor any night, nor fret my brain With all the trouble of things that I should know. I will be as other women--come and go Careless and free, my own self sure and sane, As I was once ... then suddenly you were there With your old power ... roses were everywhere And I was listening to Michael Angelo.

ENOUGH.

_Did he forget?_ ... I do not remember, All I had of him once I still have to-day; He was lovely to me as the word "amber," As the taste of honey and as the smell of hay.

What if he forget if I remember? What more of love have you than I to say? I have and hold him still in the word "amber," Taste of honey brings him, he comes back with the hay.

IN MEMORY OF DOUGLAS VERNON COW

This Poem, Dedicated to His Mother.

To twilight heads comes Death as comes a friend, As with the gentle fading of the year Fades rose, folds leaf, falls fruit, and to their end Unquestioning draw near, Their flowering over, and their fruiting done, Fulfilled and finished and going down with the sun.

But for June's heart there is no comforting When her full-throated rose Still quick with buds, still thrilling to the air, By some stray wind is tossed, Her swelling grain that goes Heavy to harvesting In a black gale is lost, And her round grape that purpled to the wine Is pinched by some chance frost. Ah, then cry out for that lost, lovely rose, For the stricken wheat, and for the finished vine! Such were you who sleep now, who have foregone So many of Life's rich secrets almost learned; Winning so much, so much as yet unwon, Yet to be dared, to discover, to reveal. Quick still with ardour, hand still at the wheel On wide and unsailed seas, eyes turning still Towards the morning, while the keen brain burned To the imperative will.

Upon your summer Death seems to set his heel, Writes on the page "No more," And brings the sign of sunset, shuts the door And the house is dark and the tired mourners sleep. Yet says he too, "Though quiet at last you lie, "And have done with laughter and strife and joy and care, "You have honour with your peace; and still you keep "Fullness of life and of felicity. "You have seen the Grail. What need you of grey hair? "There are those who daily die, "Who have long out lived their welcome in the world, "Who are old and sad and tired and fain to cease "From the crowded earth, and the hours in tumult whirled, "Urgent and vain. You are not such as these "Who have striven for laurels, and never knew the shade "Upon their brows, who would persuade the rose, "And never have come near it; till the head "Bows and the heart breaks, and the spirit knows "Only its failure, dim and featureless,-- "Its weariness of all things dreamed and done, "When love and grief alike seem emptiness "And fame and man's unrecognition one."

The full tide took you. You went out with the sun, Not in the cringing ebb, not in the grey And tremulous twilight, when each lonely one To its last loneliness must creep away. Your genius has won its rich repose, Full laurelled, wearing still the unfaded rose. And as those who bid good-bye at snowdrop time Bear with them broken promises of Spring, So you in triumph,--in the glory men had in you, In Love's full worshipping,-- High summer thoughts, untouched of Winter's rime, Went forth with honour, having fulfilled your Spring. The hands that built you felt you flower from her prayer, True to her vision true; Fearless and fine, shaped from her fashioning; Hands empty now, and yet not all unfilled, Having built and fired the generous heart and brain, Of the man you were; whose fervent spirit willed You to the service and healing and help of men.

These things are hers, not to be lost nor changed With changes of death; for though the body die The golden deed is stamped eternally With the head of God. The new and alien years Leave it still bright, unaltered, unestranged. Almost too proud, and too profound for tears Is the high memory that the desolate heart Shrines and is dumb, yet may for ever keep Unforbidden, the imperishable part, And what Love held, awake, he holds, asleep.

THE CLOUDBERRY.

Give me no coil of daemon flowers-- Pale Messalines that faint and brood Through the spent secret twilight hours On their strange feasts of blood.

Give me wild things of moss and peat-- The gipsy flower that bravely goes, The heather's little hard, brown feet, And the black eyes of sloes.

But most of all the cloudberry That offers in her clean, white cup The melting snows--the cloudberry! Where the great winds go up

To the hushed peak whose shadow fills The air with silence calm and wide-- She lives, the Dian of the hills, And the streams course beside.

TO ----

Between two common days this day was hung When Love went to the ending that was his; His seamless robe was rent, his brow was wrung, He took at last the sponge's bitter kiss.

A simple day the dawn had watched unfold Before the night had borne the death of love; You took the bread I blessed, and love was sold Upon your lips, and paid the price thereof.

I changed then, as when soul from body slips, And casts its passion and its pain aside; I pledged you with most spiritual lips, And gave you hands that you had crucified. You who betrayed, kissed, crucified, forgot, You walked with Christ, poor fool, and knew it not!

FOR FASTING DAYS.

Are you my songs, importunate of praise? Be still, remember for your comforting That sweeter birds have had less leave to sing Before men piped them from their lonely ways.

Greener leaves than yours are lost in every spring Rubies far redder thrust their eager rays Into the blindfold dark for many days Before men chose them for a finger-ring.

Sing as you dare, not as men choose, receive not The passing fashion's prize, for dole or due-- Men's summer-sweet unrecognition--grieve not: Oh, stoop not to them! Better far that you Should go unsung than sing as you believe not, Should go uncrowned than to yourselves untrue.

THE FATHER.

The evening found us whom the day had fled, Once more in bitter anger, you and I, Over some small, some foolish, trivial thing Our anger would not decently let die. But dragged between us, shamed and shivering, Until each other's taunts we scarcely heard, Until we lost the sense of all we said, And knew not who first spoke the fatal word. It seemed that even every kiss we wrung We killed at birth with shuddering and hate, As if we feared a thing too passionate. However close we clung One hour, the next hour found us separate, Estranged, and Love most bitter on our tongue. To-night we quarrelled over one small head, Our fruit of last year's maying, the white bud Blown from our stormy kisses and the dead First rapture of our wild, estranging blood. You clutched him: there was panther in your eyes, We breathed like beasts in thickets; on the wall Our shadows swelled as in huge tyrannies, The room grew dark with anger, yet through all The shame and hurt and pity of it you were Still strangely and imperishably dear, As one who loves the wild day none the less That turns to naught the lilac's miracle, Breaking the unrecapturable spell Of the first may-tree, magic and mystery Utterly scattering of earth and sky. Making even the rose's loveliness A thing for pain to be remembered by.

I said: "My son shall wear his father's sword." You said: "Shall hands once blossoms at my breast Be stained with blood?" I answered with a word More bitter, and your own, the bitterest, Stung me to sullen anger, and I said: "My son shall be no coward of his line Because his mother choose"; you turned your head, And your eyes grew implacable on mine. And like a trodden snake you turned to meet The foe with sudden hissing ... then you smiled And broke our life in pieces at my feet, "Your child?" you said. "_Your_ child?" ...

ANDROMEDA UNFETTERED.

ANDROMEDA (the spirit of woman).

PERSEUS (the new spirit of man).

CHORUS (1) Women who desire the old thrall. (2) Women who crave the new freedom.

The following poem is not a study of the economic struggle of women, but of the deep-rooted antagonism of spirit which constitutes the eternal sex-problem.

ANDROMEDA.

Chained to the years by the measureless wrong of man, Here I hang, here I suffer, here I cry, Since the light sprang forth from the dark, and the day began; Since the sky was sundered and saved from the sea, And the mouth of the beast was warm on the breast of the sod, And the birds' feet glittered like rings on the blossoming tree, And the rivers ran silver with scales, and the earth was thronged With creatures lovely and wild and sane and free; Till the Image of God arose from the dust and trod Woman and beast and bird into slavery. Who has wronged me? Man who all earth has wronged: Who has mocked me? Man, who made mock of God.

CHORUS OF FIRST WOMEN.

Nay, what do you seek? If of men we be chained, Our chains be of gold, If the fetters we break What conquest is gained? Shall the hill-top outspread a pavilion more safe than our palaces hold?

Without toil we are fed, We have gold to our hire, We have kings at our thrall, And made smooth is our bed For the fools of desire. We falter the world with our eyelids, at our laughter men scatter and fall.

What is freedom but danger, And death and disaster? We are safe: Fool, to crave The unknown, the stranger! More fettered the back than the burden; man bows; he is slave to a slave!

ANDROMEDA.

Yes, in most bitter waters have they drowned My spirit, and my soul grows grey on sleep! What if with wreaths my empty hands are bound? I am slave for all their roses, and I keep A tryst with cunning, and a troth with tears. Time has kissed out my lips, and I am dumb. I am so long called fool, I am become That fool--of street or shrine. My body bears Burden of men and children. I have been All that man has desired or dreamed of me. I have trodden a double-weary way--with Sin, Or with Sin's pale, cold sister Chastity. I am a thing of twilight. I am afraid. Dull now and tame now; of myself so shamed. Fortressed against redemption; visited Of the old dream so seldom, as things tamed Forget the life that their wild brother leads. I am a hurt beast flinching at the light. I have been palaced from the sun, and night Runs in my blood, and all night's blushless deeds!

CHORUS OF SECOND WOMEN.

Oh world so blind, so dumb to our desiring,-- To the vague cry and clamour of our being! Oh world so dark to our supreme aspiring,-- To the pitiful strange travail of our freeing! We weary not for love and lips to love us; These have been ours too often and too long; We have been hived too close; too sweet above us Tastes the bee's mouth to our honey-wearied tongue.

Not love, not love! Love was our first undoing, We have lived too long on heart-beats. None can tame The mind's new hunger, famished and pursuing, Unleashed, and crying its oppressor's name.

All that the world could give man's mind inherits: Two paths were set us. Baffled, weeping, yearning, Tossed between God and Man, rebellious spirits, We wandered, now escaped and unreturning.

We are arming, waking, terribly unfolding, The spent world shudders in a new creation, A dread and pitiless flowering beholding, Burst from the dark root of our long frustration!

ANDROMEDA.

Did God but build this temple for desire That man defraud my birthright with a kiss? Did he not give me a spirit to aspire Beyond man's fortunes and necessities?