Clouds Without Water

I] First ; let us face the foemen, number them, Measure their arms! Who smiteth us? We wove In grove and garden many a diadem Dewy with all the purity of love. The Hermes of the orchard lets the string Slip from his finger, and the arrow speeds Striking our love beneath the flamy wing So that the héart of heaven breaks and bleeds. That poisoned shaft fed with corrupting germs Hath stricken us to earth : the wound corrodes, Breeding within us all its noisome worms, All the black larvae of the accurst abodes : — The virgin of our reed-shrill ecstasies Raped by the stinking satyr of disease! -— 18— ! Il! I who have loved you — shall I love you now, Your teeth dropt out, your fair flesh fallen away, The Crown of Venus on your itching brow, The coppery flush, the leprous scurf of grey? The god that rots the Ifving flesh of man Fills up your mouth — one ulcer — with his groans And all our blessings choke and turn to ban The beast that gnaws the marrow of our bones. Caught in corrupt caresses of disease, Shali we dispute us with his fervour, fain To woo with sores your turbid arteries And kiss black ulcers in your spotted brain? We married close, my Lola, with a kiss ; -—— Now for the lifelong lover, Syphilis!