120 RODIN
IN RIME
ICARE,1
ICARUS cries: “ My love is robed in light
And splendour of the summits of the sun.
Wing, O my soul, thy plumed caparison
Through ninety million miles of space beyond
sight !
Utmost imagination’s eagle-flight
Out-soar!” But he, by his own force un-
done,
I1is peacock pinions molten one by one,
Falls to black earth through the impassive
night.
Lo! from uprushing earth arises love
Ardent and secret, scented with the night,
Amorous, ready. Sing the awakening bliss
That catches him, from the inane above
Hurled—nay, drawn down! What utter-
most delight
Dawns inthat death! Icarus and Gaia kiss.
LA FORTUNE.
‘‘HfarL, Tyche ! From the Amalthean horn
Pour forth the store of love! I lowly bend
Before thee: I invoke thee at the end
When other gods are fallen and put to scorn.
Thy foot is to my lips ; my sighs unborn
Rise, touch and curl about thy heart; they
spend
Pitiful love. Lovelier pity, descend
And bring me luck who am lonely and for-
lorn.” .
Fortune sits idle on her throne. The scent
Of honeyed incense wreathes her lips with
pleasure.
For pure delight of luxury she turns,
Smooth in her goddess rapture. So she
spurns
And crushes the pale suppliant. Softly bent,
Her body laughs in ecstasy of leisure.
1 Called ‘‘ Fille d'Icare’’ by the distinguished
anatomists, priceless idiots, and pragmatical
precisians, who see nothing but a block of
marble in this most spiritual of Rodin's master-
pieces.
PAOLO ET FRANCESCA
PAOLO ignites, Francesca is consumed.
Loosened she lies, and breathes great gasps
of love ;
He, like an hunter, hungers, leaps above,
Attains, exults, despairs. This love is
doomed,
Were there no hell. In granite walls en-
tombed
Lies the true spirit and the soul thereof.
The body is here—yet is it not enough,
These litanies unchanted, unperfumed?
Live in the shuddering marble they remain :
Here is the infinite credo of pure pain.
Here let life’s agony take hold enough
Of all that lives: let partial tears for them
Wake knowledge, brain-dissolving diadem
Of white-hot woe upon the brows of love !
LES DEUX GENIES.
Goop bends and breathes into the rosy
shell
Of peace and perfume, love in idleness,
Of pure cold raptures, hymns the mystic
stress,
Imagining’s reiterate miracle.
Evil breathes, bending, the reverberate spell
Conjuring ghosts of the insane address
Of agony lurid in the damned caress,
Exulting tortures of the heart of hell.
The maiden sits and listens, smiles. Her
breath
Is easy ; over her bowed head fall deep
Glowing cascades of hair; she combs her
hair
With subtle ecstasy, electric sweep
Of unimaginable joy ; let life and death
Pass; she will comb, and comb, and will
not care.