Collected Works (Vol. II)

THE FORTY-FIRST DAY SI THE THIRTY-NINTH DAY. ‘* Had I no eyes but ears, my ears would love That inward beauty and invisible.”’ Venus and Adonis, Nore from this day no possible event. All secrets told, and all desires fulfilled Primitive passion of our soul have killed. .We dwell within a calmer element Perfectly pure and perfectly content. The subtler splendour of our love has stilled Those sombre glories that it never willed, Those giant meanings that it never meant. Fire only is our substance; there we dwell, The Salamandrine with the Salamander. No fuel to crack, no water to make tunes, No air to blow us hither and thither; well ! At our own will through cosmic space we wander Alive, the sun’s beam mixing with the moon’s. THE FORTIETH DAY. ‘* Away, you rascally Althea’s dream, away 2 King Henry IV. MERE terror struck into our souls, one shaft Sudden and swift; our punishment was here. The shapeless form of an avenging fear Shuddered within her; from the deep rich draught Of lively labour that her nights had quaffed Rises a serpent: prescience of next year, The springtide; may the Minotaur} appear, Prodigious offspring of the fatal graft? 1 The offspring of Europa and of Jupiter under the form of a bull. VOL. Il. The worst has happened. Time must now discover . What love had hidden from the wittol’s! eyes (What hate may tell him if he read my song, If he be subtle : not if he be wise). In our despair came laughter to my lover : ‘* All’s well as yet. I calculated wrong.” THE FORTY-FIRST DAY. ‘*T am sick.” Antony and Cleopatra. How things are changed since Alice was so ill ! I, being in high fever, lay in bed, While my love smoothed the pillows for my head: Her calm looks christened me with dew to still All chance of fever to the soul, and fill My heart with pure love like a snowfall shed Meekly, a blossom where frail white and red Were never frenzied at some mad god’s will. She sat and gazed upon me all day long. Sometimes she held my hands; then she would weep, And then stoop tenderly and kiss my lips, Or lull me with some chaste and gentle song Of angel love. Night’s plume its dew fall drips As she still sits and watches me to sleep. 1 Cuckold.