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Page 1 of 11903 · PDF PAGE 84
Yet the twin faces, like Madonnas, meeting, Fear and draw back and gaze a little space ; Fear, lest they lose the moonlight frail and fleeting, Lose their own beauty in their own embrace, But feel how gladdening hearts and bosoms beating Kindle the face . . . . . . . . But not for long shall lilies strive with roses, Nor fear be fearful, nor delight repose, Nor love retire ; the woodland cleaves and closes Round heads an aureole hides, a rainbow shows. A swifter shape of fire cleaves us, encloses Rosebud and rose. . . . . . . . Mouth unto mouth…
1903 · PDF PAGE 69
LOVE AND FEAR The rose of the springtime that bended Its delicate head to the breeze Is crimson and stately and splendid Now summer is here and at ease ; Love risen as the sun hath transcended its passion and peace. In a garden of dark foliage that clusters Round your face as a rosebud withdrawn, New splendour springs carmine and lustres Your cheeks with the coming of dawn, Love’s light as an army that musters its plumes—and is gone. For fear as a fountain, that trembles With wind, is arisen, and hides The light of your love, and dissembles The…
1903 · PDF PAGE 91
THE THIRTY-FIRST DAY “ You whoreson villain ! will you let it fall ?” Taming of the Shrew. The inexpiable fate whose shuddering wing Fear fled from, changed the native deed of sin Into a spasmic kiss too salt and keen, Windless, that ended with a sterile sting The earlier hour whose heart was full of spring ; And the large love grew piteously lean ; Dreadful, like death ; withdrawn and epicene At the mad crisis of the eventful thing. O that such tender fondness like a flower’s Should take such nameless infamy ! That we Should pluck such bitter …
1903 · PDF PAGE 105
THE FORTY-THIRD DAY “ O theft most base That we have stolen what we do fear to keep.” Troilus and Cressida. Impossible that we shall ever part ! The heart shrinks back from thinking it, the mind Hates it, and prays as love is to be blind. Yet we know well that no magician’s art Can keep our two selves near their single heart. Self-mocked I urger her “ Come and leave behind All fear and friends and children : we shall find Love risen sole without a counterpart.” Even while I begged her, I well knew she must. We could not, loving to see her child…
1903 · PDF PAGE 14
…lmost every case. But in the sonnets of the 12th, 18th, 23rd, 24th, 29th, 35th, 41st, 43rd and 48th days, also in “ At Last,” “ Love and Fear,” and “ Lethe,” one or more whole lines have been almost im- possible to read. The literary student will be able readily to detect my patchwork emendations. These I have dared to make because his whole pattern (may I use the word ?) is so elaborate and perfect that I fear to annoy the reader by leaving any blanks, feeling that my own poverty of diction will be less noticeable than any actual hiatus in the…
1903 · PDF PAGE 97
LETHE. We have forgotten all the days of fear, The nights of torment when the kiss expired, Lost upon lips with love not overtired, But fearing many things—the after year, The end, the man—O no, not him ! the tear, The children’s sorrow, and our own shame fired Not less in doing all that love desired : We have forgotten, surely—being here ! We have forgotten every shape of sorrow, Knowing no end to one night’s ecstasy In the night’s kiss from morning that we borrow, From the hard usurer, Eternity— Seeing we have it in our power to die Before th…
1903 · PDF PAGE 90
THE DAY WITHOUT A NUMBER “ O never shall the sun that morrow see.” Macbeth. We lost a day ! Nor kisses, nor regret, Nor fear, nor pain, nor anything at all ! The day was lost, evanished past recall, That saw no sunrise, never saw sun set— For East and West invisibly were met In gateways neither glad nor musical Nor melancholy nor funereal. Nought is there to remember nor forget. Yet in my westward journey many hours I stole, and now must pay them back again. I plucked not one flower, but an hundred flowers ; I bore an hundred passions in my bra…
1903 · PDF PAGE 101
…ing 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 ? 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…
1903 · PDF PAGE 61
…her, more than shame or wrong, And the soft question murmured “ Love you—whom ?” The deepening rose ; the heart’s pulse quickening ; The fear ; the increasing ecstasy of this— A little cloud lifted a sombre wing Shadowing our secret breath from Artemis— Breasts met and arms enclosed, and all the spring Grew into summer with the first long kiss. 41
1903 · PDF PAGE 73
THE EIGHTEENTH DAY “ Touches so soft still conquer chastity.” Passionate Pilgrim. She grew most fearful, starting at slight noise ; As knowing that the sting of shame was hers Worse than a guilty love administers, Since our pure shame unworthily destroys The love of all she had, her girls and boys, Her home, their lives : and yet my whisper stirs Into live flame her passion, and deters Her fear from spurning all the day’s due joys. She had not dared to speak one word, to tell How deep and pure a fountain sunward leapt In her life’s garden : but…
1903 · PDF PAGE 74
THE NINETEENTH DAY “ The boy is foolish, and I fear not him.” Richard III. She dared not come into my room to-night. So ? I was acquiescent, sharp despair And nervous purpose mixing in me there The while I waited : then I glided light (Clad in the swart robe of an eremite) Across the passage and, all unaware My kisses underneath the veil of vair Woke her : she turned and sighed and held me tight. Her child slept gently on the farther side. But we took danger by the throat, despised All but the one sole splendour that we prized ; And she, whose …
1903 · PDF PAGE 53
…y the power of heaven, Of my own mind, the Genii of the Seven, To come and live with me and be my dear, To love me in the spirit without fear ;— Leaving the body’s love to follow at even. Seemeth it not absurd ? to use the thought, The utterly divine impersonal Mind of a man, the pure, the spiritual, To such a purpose rather less than nought, A woman’s love—considering that all Wise men assure us that it may be bought ! 33
1903 · PDF PAGE 68
…il-fish : go back ? The hand is put forth to the plough—beware ! I took my shrine down : at the night we lay Four hours debating between fear and sin : Whether our love went deeper than the skin, Or lower than the lips : love won the day. We nestled like young turtles that be twin Close till the morn-star chased the moon away. 48
1903 · PDF PAGE 103
…he mother stood behind the bride. In any other case what love and laughter Such tidings of an angel’s birth would waft her ; Now, what a fear ! And so she would abide Another vessel and another tide, Until we held the key of the hereafter. But this sad spectre could not change our calm. The day went by more peaceful than a dream Dreamt by a maiden in pure winds of balm ; Love’s sweet still music like a far-off psalm Thrilled our quiet pulses : with the intent supreme : “ This one week more a century shall seem.” 83
1903 · PDF PAGE 54
…ickled her withal : then grave and still Waited secure : the silence grew intense. She read—and saw me but a beardless boy, Too young to fear, too gentle not to pity, Not overbold ; quite powerless to destroy Her life’s long peace, the ten-year-walléd city. Why be too cruel, check such baby joy ? She said “ I think the poem very pretty.” 34
1903 · PDF PAGE 87
…nt a touch of modesty that you will not extort from me what I am willing to keep in.” Twelfth-Night. A curious conflict this of love and fear, Honour and lust, and truth and trust beguiled ; One in the semblance of a rose-bright child :— The other in a shape more gross and clear, A fiercer woman-figure crowned severe With garlands woven of scourges, but whose wild Breast beat with splendour of sin, whose looks were mild, Hiding the cruel smile behind a tear. So she : “ I now you never would ; ” yet did Such acts that no end otherwise might be. …
1903 · PDF PAGE 64
…quy i’ th’ world For me to lose.” All’s Well. There was no secret cave of the wood’s womb Where we might kiss all day without a start Of fear that meant to stay and must depart, Nor any corner where the sea’s perfume Might shelter love in some wave-carven tomb. But Maytime shone in us ; with words of art I drew her down reluctant to my heart, When night was silence and my bed the gloom. So without sin we took strange sacrament, Whose wine was kisses, and whose bread the flower Of fast and fervent cleaving breast to breast. As lily bends to lily…
1903 · PDF PAGE 71
… Dew filling your eyes and their lashes With tender mirage of a tear ; Dew fallen on the mouth as it flashes, The kiss that is master of fear ; Dew covering the body that dashes and clings to me here. O fairest, O rose among roses ! O flower of the innermost fire ! O tune of my soul that encloses All life, the tempestuous lyre ! O dawn of my dawn that reposes and darts in desire ! And death and its portals are rifted, Life listens our kisses that weep ; Love hears, and his measure is shifted, Grows solemn and deadly and deep ; Love’s ship droop…