Clouds Without Water

IV Our love is like a glittering sabre bloodied With lives of men; upsoared the sudden sun; The choral heaven woke; the aethyr flooded All space with joy that you and I were one. But in the dark and splendid dens of death Arose an echo of that jewelled song : There swept a savour of polluted breath From the lost souls, the unsubstantial throng That tasted once a shadow of our glory And turn them in the evil house to adore The godhead of our sin, the tragic story We have set ourselves to write, the sombre score Our daggers carve with poesy sublime Upon the roof tree of despair and crime! As we read Love and Death in either’s eyes, We see the cool mild splendour of the dawn Damned by some tragic throw of murderous dice To slash like lightning over lea and lawn Jagged and horrible across the curtain Of heaven, writing ruin, ruin — we see Our certain joy marred with a doubly certain Soul-shattering anguish. — Bah! To you and me Such loathing, such despair are little things. We are afloat on the flood-tide of lust — A lust more spiritual than life, that stings Till death and hell dissolve i’ the aftergust. So? But the Gods avert their faces, bend Their holy brows, and see — no-happy end.