Chapter 5

As I turned From painting and from art, yet found myself Full of all lusts while bound to menial work Where my eyes daily rested on this woman A thought came to me like a little spark One sees far down the darkness of a cave, Which grows into a flame, a blinding light As one approaches it, so did this thought Both burn and blind me: For I loved this woman, I wanted her, why should I lose this woman? What was there to oppose possession? Will? Her will, you say? I am not sure, but then Which will is better, mine or hers? Which will Deserves achievement? Which has rights above The other? I desire her, her desire Is not toward me, which of these two desires Shall triumph? Why not mine for me and hers For her, at least the stronger must prevail, And wreck itself or bend all else before it. That millionaire who wooed her, tried in vain To overwhelm her will with gold, and I With passion, boldness would have overwhelmed it, And what's the difference?

But as I said I walked the galleries. When I stood in the yard Bare armed, bare throated at my work, she came And gazed upon me from her window. I Could feel the exhausting influence of her eyes. Then in a concentration which was blindness To all else, so bewilderment of mind, I'd go to see Watteau's Antiope Where he sketched Zeus in hunger, drawing back The veil that hid her sleeping nakedness. There was Correggio's too, on whom a satyr Smiled for his amorous wonder. A Semele, Done by an unknown hand, a thing of lightning Moved through by Zeus who seized her as the flames Consumed her ravished beauty.

So I looked, And trembled, then returned perhaps to find Her eyes upon me conscious, calm, elate, And radiate with lashes of surprise, Delight as when a star is still but shines. And on this night somehow our natures worked To climaxes. For first she dressed for dinner To show more back and bosom than before. And as I served her, her down-looking eyes Were more than glances. Then she dropped her napkin. Before I could begin to bend she leaned And let me see--oh yes, she let me see The white foam of her little breasts caressing The scarlet flame of silk, a swooning shore Of bright carnations. It was from such foam That Venus rose. And as I stooped and gave The napkin to her she pushed out a foot, And then I coughed for breath grown short, and she Concealed a smile--and you, you jailers laugh Coarse-mouthed, and mock my hunger.

I go on, Observe how courage, boldness mark my steps! At nine o'clock she climbs to her boudoir. I finding errands in the hallway hear The desultory taking up of books, And through her open door, see her at last Cast off her dinner gown and to the bath Step like a ray of moonlight. Then she snaps The light on where the onyx tub and walls Dazzle the air. I enter then her room And stand against the closed door, do not pry Upon her in the bath. Give her the chance To fly me, fight me standing face to face. I hear her flounder in the water, hear Hands slap and slip with water breast and arms; Hear little sighs and shudders and the roughness Of crash towels on her back, when in a minute She stands with back toward me in the doorway, A sea-shell glory, pink and white to hair Sun-lit, a lily crowned with powdered gold. She turned toward her dresser then and shook White dust of talcum on her arms, and looked So lovingly upon her tense straight breasts, Touching them under with soft tapering hands To blue eyes deepening like a brazier flame Turned by a sudden gust. Who gives her these, The thought ran through me, for her joy alone And not for mine?

So I stood there like Zeus Coming in thunder to Semele, like The diety of Watteau. Correggio Had never painted me a satyr there Drinking her beauty in, so worshipful, My will subdued in worship of her beauty To obey her will.

And then she turned and saw me, And faced me in her nakedness, nor tried To hide it from me, faced me immovable A Mona Lisa smile upon her lips. And let me plead my cause, make known my love, Speak out my torture, wearing still the smile. Let me approach her till I almost touched The whiteness of her bosom. Then it seemed That smile of hers not wilting me she clapped Hands over eyes and said: "I am afraid-- Oh no, it cannot be--what would they say?" Then rushing in the bathroom, quick she slammed The door and shrieked: "You scoundrel, go--you beast." My dream went up like paper charred and whirled Above a hearth. Thrilling I stood alone Amid her room and saw my life, our life Embodied in this woman lately there Lying and cowardly. And as I turned To leave the room, her father and the gardener Pounced on me, threw me down a flight of stairs And turned me over, stunned, to you the law Here with these others who have stolen coal To keep them warm, as I have stolen beauty To keep from freezing in this arid country Of winter winds on which the dust of custom Rides like a fog.

Now do your worst to me!

THE LANDSCAPE

You and your landscape! There it lies Stripped, resuming its disguise, Clothed in dreams, made bare again, Symbol infinite of pain, Rapture, magic, mystery Of vanished days and days to be. There's its sea of tidal grass Over which the south winds pass, And the sun-set's Tuscan gold Which the distant windows hold For an instant like a sphere Bursting ere it disappear. There's the dark green woods which throve In the spell of Leese's Grove. And the winding of the road; And the hill o'er which the sky Stretched its pallied vacancy Ere the dawn or evening glowed. And the wonder of the town Somewhere from the hill-top down Nestling under hills and woods And the meadow's solitudes.

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And your paper knight of old Secrets of the landscape told. And the hedge-rows where the pond Took the blue of heavens beyond The hastening clouds of gusty March. There you saw their wrinkled arch Where the East wind cracks his whips Round the little pond and clips Main-sails from your toppled ships. ...

Landscape that in youth you knew Past and present, earth and you! All the legends and the tales Of the uplands, of the vales; Sounds of cattle and the cries Of ploughmen and of travelers Were its soul's interpreters. And here the lame were always lame. Always gray the gray of head. And the dead were always dead Ere the landscape had become Your cradle, as it was their tomb.

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And when the thunder storms would waken Of the dream your soul was not forsaken: In the room where the dormer windows look-- There were your knight and the tattered book. With colors of the forest green Gabled roofs and the demesne Of faery kingdoms and faery time Storied in pre-natal rhyme. ... Past the orchards, in the plain The cattle fed on in the rain. And the storm-beaten horseman sped Rain blinded and with bended head. And John the ploughman comes and goes In labor wet, with steaming clothes. This is your landscape, but you see Not terror and not destiny Behind its loved, maternal face, Its power to change, or fade, replace Its wonder with a deeper dream, Unfolding to a vaster theme. From time eternal was this earth? No less this landscape with your birth Arose, nor leaves you, nor decay Finds till the twilight of your day. It bore you, moulds you to its plan. It ends with you as it began, But bears the seed of future years Of higher raptures, dumber tears.

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For soon you lose the landscape through Absence, sorrow, eyes grown true To the naked limbs which show Buds that never more may blow. Now you know the lame were straight Ere you knew them, and the fate Of the old is yet to die. Now you know the dead who lie In the graves you saw where first The landscape on your vision burst, Were not always dead, and now Shadows rest upon the brow Of the souls as young as you. Some are gone, though years are few Since you roamed with them the hills. So the landscape changes, wills All the changes, did it try Its promises to justify?...

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For you return and find it bare: There is no heaven of golden air. Your eyes around the horizon rove, A clump of trees is Leese's Grove. And what's the hedgerow, what's the pond? A wallow where the vagabond Beast will not drink, and where the arch Of heaven in the days of March Refrains to look. A blinding rain Beats the once gilded window pane. John, the poor wretch, is gone, but bread Tempts other feet that path to tread Between the barn and house, and brave The March rain and the winds that rave. ... O, landscape I am one who stands Returned with pale and broken hands Glad for the day that I have known, And finds the deserted doorway strown With shoulder blade and spinal bone. And you who nourished me and bred I find the spirit from you fled. You gave me dreams,'twas at your breast My soul's beginning rose and pressed My steps afar at last and shaped A world elusive, which escaped Whatever love or thought could find Beyond the tireless wings of mind. Yet grown by you, and feeding on Your strength as mother, you are gone When I return from living, trace My steps to see how I began, And deeply search your mother face To know your inner self, the place For which you bore me, sent me forth To wander, south or east or north. ... Now the familiar landscape lies With breathless breast and hollow eyes. It knows me not, as I know not Its secret, spirit, all forgot Its kindred look is, as I stand A stranger in an unknown land.

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Are we not earth-born, formed of dust Which seeks again its love and trust In an old landscape, after change In hearts grown weary, wrecked and strange? What though we struggled to emerge Dividual, footed for the urge Of further self-discoveries, though In the mid-years we cease to know, Through disenchanted eyes, the spell That clothed it like a miracle-- Yet at the last our steps return Its deeper mysteries to learn. It has been always us, it must Clasp to itself our kindred dust. We cannot free ourselves from it. Near or afar we must submit To what is in us, what was grown Out of the landscape's soil, the known And unknown powers of soil and soul. As bodies yield to the control Of the earth's center, and so bend In age, so hearts toward the end Bend down with lips so long athirst To waters which were known at first-- The little spring at Leese's Grove Was your first love, is your last love!

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When those we knew in youth have crept Under the landscape, which has kept Nothing we saw with youthful eyes; Ere God is formed in the empty skies, I wonder not our steps are pressed Toward the mystery of their rest. That is the hope at bud which kneels Where ancestors the tomb conceals. Age no less than youth would lean Upon some love. For what is seen No more of father, mother, friend, For hands of flesh lost, eyes grown blind In death, a something which assures, Comforts, allays our fears, endures. Just as the landscape and our home In childhood made of heaven's dome, And all the farthest ways of earth A place as sheltered as the hearth.

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Is it not written at the last day Heaven and earth shall roll away? Yes, as my landscape passed through death, Lay like a corpse, and with new breath Became instinct with fire and light-- So shall it roll up in my sight, Pass from the realm of finite sense, Become a thing of spirit, whence I shall pass too, its child in faith Of dreams it gave me, which nor death Nor change can wreck, but still reveal In change a Something vast, more real Than sunsets, meadows, green-wood trees, Or even faery presences. A Something which the earth and air Transmutes but keeps them what they were; Clear films of beauty grown more thin As we approach and enter in. Until we reach the scene that made Our landscape just a thing of shade.

TO-MORROW IS MY BIRTHDAY

Well, then, another drink! Ben Jonson knows, So do you, Michael Drayton, that to-morrow I reach my fifty-second year. But hark ye, To-morrow lacks two days of being a month-- Here is a secret--since I made my will. Heigh ho! that's done too! I wonder why I did it? That I should make a will! Yet it may be That then and jump at this most crescent hour Heaven inspired the deed.

As a mad younker I knew an aged man in Warwickshire Who used to say, "Ah, mercy me," for sadness Of change, or passing time, or secret thoughts. If it was spring he sighed it, if 'twas fall, With drifting leaves, he looked upon the rain And with doleful suspiration kept This habit of his grief. And on a time As he stood looking at the flying clouds, I loitering near, expectant, heard him say it, Inquired, "Why do you say 'Ah, mercy me,' Now that it's April?" So he hobbled off And left me empty there.

Now here am I! Oh, it is strange to find myself this age, And rustling like a peascod, though unshelled, And, like this aged man of Warwickshire, Slaved by a mood which must have breath--"Tra-la! That's what I say instead of "Ah, mercy me." For look you, Ben, I catch myself with "Tra-la" The moment I break sleep to see the day. At work, alone, vexed, laughing, mad or glad I say, "Tra-la" unknowing. Oft at table I say, "Tra-la." And 'tother day, poor Anne Looked long at me and said, "You say, 'Tra-la' Sometimes when you're asleep; why do you so?" Then I bethought me of that aged man Who used to say, "Ah, mercy me," but answered: "Perhaps I am so happy when awake The song crops out in slumber--who can say?" And Anne arose, began to keel the pot, But was she answered, Ben? Who know a woman?

To-morrow is my birthday. If I die, Slip out of this with Bacchus for a guide, What soul would interdict the poppied way? Heroes may look the Monster down, a child Can wilt a lion, who is cowed to see Such bland unreckoning of his strength--but I, Having so greatly lived, would sink away Unknowing my departure. I have died A thousand times, and with a valiant soul Have drunk the cup, but why? In such a death To-morrow shines and there's a place to lean. But in this death that has no bottom to it, No bank beyond, no place to step, the soul Grows sick, and like a falling dream we shrink From that inane which gulfs us, without place For us to stand and see it.

Yet, dear Ben, This thing must be; that's what we live to know Out of long dreaming, saying that we know it. As yeasty heroes in their braggart teens Spout learnedly of war, who never saw A cannon aimed. You drink too much to-day, Or get a scratch while turning Lucy's stile, And like a beast you sicken. Like a beast They cart you off. What matter if your thought Outsoared the Phoenix? Like a beast you rot. Methinks that something wants our flesh, as we Hunger for flesh of beasts. But still to-morrow, To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow Creeps in this petty pace--O, Michael Drayton, Some end must be. But 'twixt the fear of ceasing And weariness of going on we lie Upon these thorns!

These several springs I find No new birth in the Spring. And yet in London I used to cry, "O, would I were in Stratford; It's April and the larks are singing now. The flags are green along the Avon river; O, would I were a rambler in the fields. This poor machine is racing to its wreck. This grist of thought is endless, this old sorrow Sprouts, winds and crawls in London's darkness. Come Back to your landscape! Peradventure waits Some woman there who will make new the earth, And crown the spring with fire."

So back I come. And the springs march before me, say, "Behold Here are we, and what would you, can you use us? What good is air if lungs are out, or springs When the mind's flown so far away no spring, Nor loveliness of earth can call it back? I tell you what it is: in early youth The life is in the loins; by thirty years It travels through the stomach to the lungs, And then we strut and crow. By forty years The fruit is swelling while the leaves are fresh. By fifty years you're ripe, begin to rot. At fifty-two, or fifty-five or sixty The life is in the seed--what's spring to you? Puff! Puff! You are so winged and light you fly. For every passing zephyr, are blown off, And drifting, God knows where, cry out "tra-la," "Ah, mercy me," as it may happen you. Puff! Puff! away you go!

Another drink? Why, you may drown the earth with ale and I Will drain it like a sea. The more I drink The better I see that this is April time. ...

Ben! There is one Voice which says to everything: "Dream what you will, I'll make you bear your seed. And, having borne, the sickle comes among ye And takes your stalk." The rich and sappy greens Of spring or June show life within the loins, And all the world is fair, for now the plant Can drink the level cup of flame where heaven Is poured full by the sun. But when the blossom Flutters its colors, then it takes the cup And waves the stalk aside. And having drunk The stalk to penury, then slumber comes With dreams of spring stored in the imprisoned germ, An old life and a new life all in one, A thing of memory and of prophecy, Of reminiscence, longing, hope and fear. What has been ours is taken, what was ours Becomes entailed on our seed in the spring, Fees in possession and enjoyment too. ...

The thing is sex, Ben. It is that which lives And dies in us, makes April and unmakes, And leaves a man like me at fifty-two, Finished but living, on the pinnacle Betwixt a death and birth, the earth consumed And heaven rolled up to eyes whose troubled glances Would shape again to something better--what? Give me a woman, Ben, and I will pick Out of this April, by this larger art Of fifty-two, such songs as we have heard, Both you and I, when weltering in the clouds Of that eternity which comes in sleep, Or in the viewless spinning of the soul When most intense. The woman is somewhere, And that's what tortures, when I think this field So often gleaned could blossom once again If I could find her.

Well, as to my plays: I have not written out what I would write. They have a thousand buds of finer flowering. And over "Hamlet" hangs a teasing spirit As fine to that as sense is fine to flesh. Good friends, my soul beats up its prisoned wings Against the ceiling of a vaster whorl And would break through and enter. But, fair friends, What strength in place of sex shall steady me? What is the motive of this higher mount? What process in the making of myself-- The very fire, as it were, of my growth-- Shall furnish forth these writings by the way, As incident, expression of the nature Relumed for adding branches, twigs and leaves?...

Suppose I'd make a tragedy of this, Focus my fancied "Dante" to this theme, And leave my halfwrit "Sappho," which at best Is just another delving in the mine That gave me "Cleopatra" and the Sonnets? If you have genius, write my tragedy, And call it "Shakespeare, Gentleman of Stratford," Who lost his soul amid a thousand souls, And had to live without it, yet live with it As wretched as the souls whose lives he lived. Here is a play for you: Poor William Shakespeare, This moment growing drunk, the famous author Of certain sugared sonnets and some plays, With this machine too much to him, which started Some years ago, now cries him nay and runs Even when the house shakes and complains, "I fall, You shake me down, my timbers break apart. Why, if an engine must go on like this The building should be stronger."

Or to mix, And by the mixing, unmix metaphors, No mortal man has blood enough for brains And stomach too, when the brain is never done With thinking and creating.

For you see, I pluck a flower, cut off a dragon's head-- Choose twixt these figures--lo, a dozen buds, A dozen heads out-crop. For every fancy, Play, sonnet, what you will, I write me out With thinking "Now I'm done," a hundred others Crowd up for voices, and, like twins unborn Kick and turn o'er for entrance to the world. And I, poor fecund creature, who would rest, As 'twere from an importunate husband, fly To money-lending, farming, mulberry trees, Enclosing Welcombe fields, or idling hours In common talk with people like the Combes. All this to get a heartiness, a hold On earth again, lest Heaven Hercules, Finding me strayed to mid-air, kicking heels Above the mountain tops, seize on my scruff And bear me off or strangle.

Good, my friends, The "Tempest" is as nothing to the voice That calls me to performance--what I know not. I've planned an epic of the Asian wash Which slopped the star of Athens and put out, Which should all history analyze, and present A thousand notables in the guise of life, And show the ancient world and worlds to come To the last blade of thought and tiniest seed Of growth to be. With visions such as these My spirit turns in restless ecstacy, And this enslaved brain is master sponge, And sucks the blood of body, hands and feet. While my poor spirit, like a butterfly Gummed in its shell, beats its bedraggled wings, And cannot rise.