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ALICE The roses of the world are sad, The water-lilies pale, Because my lover takes her lad Beneath the moonlight veil. No flower may bloom this happy hour— Unless my Alice be the flower. The stars are hidden in dark and mist, The moon and sun are dead, Because my love has caught and kissed My body in her bed. No light may shine this happy night— Unless my Alice be the light. 45
I would not kiss thee, I ! Lest my lip’s charactery Ruin thy flower. Curve thou one maidenly Kiss, stooping from thy sky Of peace and power ! Thine only be the embrace !— I move not from my place, Feel the exultant face Mine for an hour ! Mine, and for ever mine ; Dim glory in the shrine Of Artemis Endymion-lured to wine, And dove-looks Erycine, Flower-scented bliss ! O sweet ! O saint ! I swoon Beneath the guiding moon ; In thine embrace, the tune Of that one kiss. 40
One kiss, like moonlight cold Lighting with floral gold The lake’s low tune ; One kiss, one flower to fold, On its own calyx rolled At night, in June ! One kiss, like dewfall, drawn A veil o’er leaf and lawn— Mix night, and noon, and dawn, Dew, flower, and moon ! One kiss, intense, supreme ! The sense of Nature’s dream And scent of Heaven Shewn in the glint and gleam Of the pure dawn’s first beam, With earth for leaven ; Moulded of fire and gold, Water and wine to fold Me in its life, and hold !— In all but seven ! 39
…en in gold on the day’s grave, “ To love, and to forget ; ” And sea-winds whisper o’er the wave The name of Margaret. A heart of gold, a flower of white, A blushing flame of snow, She moves like latticed moons of light— And O ! her voice is low, Shell-murmurs borne to Amphitrite, Exulting as they go. 14
…ld not : being good, Also endure ! Cruel, to tear or mar The chaliced nenuphar ; Cruel to press The rosebud ; cruel to scar Or stain the flower-star With mad caress. But crueller to destroy The leaping life and joy Born in a careless boy From lone distress. 37
Not only as the kiss of tender lovers— Let mingle also the sun’s kiss to sea, Also the wind’s kiss to the bird that hovers, The flower’s kiss to the earth’s deep greenery. All elemental love closes and covers Both you and me. All shapes of silence and of sound and seeing, All lives of Nature molten into this, The moonlight waking and the shadows fleeing, Strange sorcery of unimagined bliss, All breath breathing in ours ; mingled all being Into the kiss. 65
… Beyond a name. Then fall I from excess Of bitter ecstasies, Pale ghosts of blood, To worlds where palaces Shine through dim memories Of flower and flood, Shine in pale opal and pearl, Void of bright boy or girl, Desolate halls that furl Their shapes subdued. 5
Her stature waves, as if a flower Forgot the evening breeze, But heard the charioted hour Sweep from the farther seas, And kept sweet time within her bower, And hushed mild melodies. So grave and delicate and tall— Shall laughter never sweep Like a moss-guarded waterfall Across her ivory sleep ? A tender laugh most musical ? A sigh serenely deep ? She laughs in wordless swift desire A soft Thalassian tune ; Her eyelids glimmer with the fire That animates the moon ; Her chaste lips flame, as flames aspire Of poppies in mid-June. 15
…ught 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 brain— King Solomon had three hundred paramours. I quite agree that everything is vain. 70
…iteously 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 bloom, rooted in fear, Salt with the scurf of some diseaséd sea, Foul with the curse of God : that we are here, Hating the night’s inexorable hours. 71
…Son’s, Or see the Virgin’s House in Kwan-se-on’s ; And when I told her, flushed, and bade me cease. I ceased indeed ! All hope of mental flower She shattered in five minutes : following lust, All intellectual communing did pass, And all respect of mind : but love’s high tower, Stricken of lightning, stood : not fallen in dust, Beautiful fragments as of a Greek vase. 79
…s Unreal shuttle-game—the kiss ! Her moving body sobs above, And calls its lechery true love. Out from the flame of heart she plucks One flower of fiery light, and sucks Its essence up within her lips, And flings it into mine, and dips And bends her body, writhes and swims To link the velvet of our limbs, My drouthy passion worn and keen, And lusty life of Messaline. The heart’s blood in her boiling over She sucked from many a dying lover : The purple of her racing veins Leapt from some soul’s despairing pains ; She drinks up life as from a cup…
…behind a tear. So she : “ I now you never would ; ” yet did Such acts that no end otherwise might be. So I : “ I will not ever pluck the flower ; ” Yet strayed enchanted on the lawns forbid, And bathed enamoured in the secret sea, Both knowing our words were spoken—for an hour. 67
…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 we were bent, Not as mere man to woman : all the dower Of martyred Virgins crowned our dangerous quest. 44
…the light of heaven is shaded, The sound of the sea is made still, The climax shall come unupbraided Obedient alone to our will, And the flowers that were fallen and faded drink dew to their fill : 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…