Collected Works (Vol. II)

THE THIRTY-SIXTH DAY 79 She never told: but I might surely see In the drawn face and haggard eyes what vast Voices of misery had held her fast, And made her curse her own lock’s cruelty. So by her beauty and my love we swore, And by the light within mine eyes, by her Sweet shame: that never so we sunder again. But she: ‘‘ You swear ‘by thy bright face’ in vain; ‘ By thy sweet self’ you grow a perjurer; Who have shamed my face and made me but an whore.” THE THIRTY-FOURTH DAY. ‘* Ben. Stop there, stop there. Mer. Thou desirest me to stop in my tale against the hair.” Romeo and Jultet. SWEET are the swift hard struggles ere the kiss, When the frail body blushes into tears, and short breaths cancel the long sigh3, and fears Constrain delight, until their import is Made foolish when the struggle’s synthesis Leads to hot armistice, as dewy spheres Glow, and increase the fury that reveres No God, no heaven but its own hell’s bliss. So after desperate shifts of modesty We could no more; loosened and lax we lay Breathing and holding: then in amorous play She laughed and left her body’s love to me, And kissed one kiss holding the heart of May, And kissed again, and kissed our lives away. THE THIRTY-FIFTH DAY. ‘‘T cannot kiss, that is the humour of it, but adieu.” King Henry V. THE third time bitterly came reason back. Is it a fault in love when mornings find The soul grown sober and rethroned the ‘ mind? Or is it mere necessity to track The candid chequer cross-wise to the black, And love, not mutable, yet well inclined To take his pleasure in becoming blind After such sight mere day is wont to lack? _So we were angry with ourselves and said We would not kiss—two days, and we would part. And she prayed heaven that she might be dead, And I cursed heaven and my foolish head. I strove to turn towards old shapes of Art; She, to some phantom faded from her heart. THE THIRTY-SIXTH DAY. ‘«"Twas not their infirmity, It was married chastity.” Phenix and Turtle, YET ere the stars paled slowly in the east I could not sleep: and she—how else? What rest May a man know until his quiet breast Beats to her tune? I garbed me as a priest And moved towards my Host—on God I feast ! We lay in naked chastity, caressed Child-like or dreaming, till the dawn repressed Our sighs: that nuptial yet hath never ceased.