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I What thing is this that, built of salt and lime And such dry motes as in the sunbeam show, Has power upon me that do daily climb The dustless air? — for whom those peaks of snow Whereup the lungs of man with borrowed breath Go labouring to a doom I may not feel, Are but a pearled and roseate plain beneath My winged helmet and my winged heel. What sweet emotions neither foe nor friend Are these that clog my flight? what thing is this That hastening headlong to a dusty end Dare turn upon me these proud eyes of bliss? Up, up, my feathers! — ere I lay you by To journey barefoot with a mortal joy. II This beast that rends me in the sight of all, This love, this longing, this oblivious thing, That has me under as the last leaves fall, Will glut, will sicken, will be gone by spring. The wound will heal, the fever will abate, The knotted hurt will slacken in the breast; I shall forget before the flickers mate Your look that is today my east and west. Unscathed, however, from a claw so deep Though I should love again I shall not go: Along my body, waking while I sleep, Sharp to the kiss, cold to the hand as snow, The scar of this encounter like a sword Will lie between me and my troubled lord. III No lack of counsel from the shrewd and wise How love may be acquired and how conserved Warrants this laying bare before your eyes My needle to your north abruptly swerved; If I would hold you, I must hide my fears Lest you be wanton, lead you to believe My compass to another quarter veers, Little surrender, lavishly receive. But being like my mother the brown earth Fervent and full of gifts and free from guile, Liefer would I you loved me for my worth, Though you should love me but a little while, Than for a philtre and doll can brew, — Though thus I bound you as I long to do. IV Nay, learnèd doctor, these fine leeches fresh From the pond's edge my cause cannot remove: Alas, the sick disorder in my flesh Is deeper than your skill, is very love. And you, good friar, far liefer would I think Upon my dear, and dream him in your place, Than heed your ben'cites and heavenward sink With empty heart and noddle full of grace. Breathes but one mortal on the teeming globe Could minister to my soul's or body's needs — Physician minus physic, minus robe; Confessor minus Latin, minus beads. Yet should you bid me name him, I am dumb; For though you summon him, he would not come. V Of all that ever in extreme disease "Sweet Love, sweet cruel Love, have pity!" cried, Count me the humblest, hold me least of these That wear the red heart crumpled in the side, In heaviest durance, dreaming or awake, Filling the dungeon with their piteous woe; Not that I shriek not till the dungeon shake, "Oh, God! Oh, let me out! Oh, let me go!" But that my chains throughout their iron length Make such a golden clank upon my ear, But that I would not, boasted I the strength, Up with a terrible arm and out of here Where thrusts my morsel daily through the bars This tall, oblivious gaoler eyed with stars. VI Since I cannot persuade you from this mood Of pale preoccupation with the dead, Not for my comfort nor for your own good Shift your concern to living bones instead; Since that which Helen did and ended Troy Is more than I can do though I be warm, Have up your buried girls, egregious boy, And stand with them against the unburied storm. When you lie wasted and your blood runs thin, And what's to do must with dispatch be done, Call Cressid, call Elaine, call Isolt in! — More bland the ichor of a ghost should run Along your dubious veins than the rude sea Of passion pounding all day long in me. VII Night is my sister, and how deep in love, How drowned in love and weedily washed ashore, There to be fretted by the drag and shove At the tide's edge, I lie — these things and more: Whose arm alone between me and the sand, Whose voice alone, whose pitiful breath brought near, Could thaw these nostrils and unlock this hand, She could advise you, should you care to hear. Small chance, however, in a storm so black, A man will leave his friendly fire and snug For a drowned woman's sake, and bring her back To drip and scatter shells upon the rug. No one but Night, with tears on her dark face, Watches beside me in this windy place. VIII Yet in an hour to come, disdainful dust, You shall be bowed and brought to bed with me. While the blood roars, or when the blood is rust About a broken engine, this shall be. If not today, then later; if not here On the green grass, with sighing, and delight, Then under it, all in good time, my dear, We shall be laid together in the night. And ruder and more violent, be assured, Than the desirous body's heat and sweat That shameful kiss by more than night obscured Wherewith at length the scornfullest mouth is met. Life has no friend; her converts late or soon Slide back to feed the dragon with the moon. IX When you are dead, and your disturbing eyes No more as now their stormy lashes lift To lance me through — as in the morning skies One moment, plainly visible in a rift Of cloud, two splendid planets may appear And purely blaze, and are at once withdrawn, What time the watcher in desire and fear Leans from his window in the dawn — Shall I be free, shall I be once again As others are, and count your loss no care? Oh, never more, till my dissolving brain Be powerless to evoke you out of air, Remembered morning stars, more fiercely bright Than all the Alphas of the actual night! |
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