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Page 1 of 21903 · PDF PAGE 16
…man is justified in stripping bare his soul for the public benefit. “ Shall I sonnet-sing you about myself?” asks Browning ; “ unlock my heart with a sonnet- key ?” And his answer is :— “ With this same key Shakespeare unlocked his heart,” once more ! Did Shakespeare ? If so, the less shakespeare he !” Very well ; but Browning himself went even farther, and permitted the posthumous publication of the actual love letters that passed between himself and his wife. In point of fact, there seems no great objection to such an action save in the poet’…
1903 · PDF PAGE 105
…IRD 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 children laugh, L…
1903 · PDF PAGE 32
…he ghostliness of this 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 …
1903 · PDF PAGE 55
RED POPPY I have no heart to sing. What offering may I bring, Alice, to thee ? My great love’s lifted wing Weakens, unwearying, And droops with me, Seeing the sun-kindled hair Close in the face more fair, The sweet soul shining there For God to see. 35
1903 · PDF PAGE 36
…p are set ; Written 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
1903 · PDF PAGE 23
…language; others as among the best and loveliest we have of any poet, living or dead. “ The roses of the world are sad ” and “ I have no heart to sing ” are, in my opinion, unsurpassed in any language. Their presence alone is sufficient apology for the publication of an otherwise objectionable book. G.K. xx
1903 · PDF PAGE 56
Surely some angle shed Flowers for the maiden head, Ephemeral flowers ! I yearn, not comforted. My heart has vainly bled Through age-long hours. To thee my spirit turns ; My bright soul aches and burns, As a dry valley yearns For spring and showers. Splendid, remote, a fane Alone and unprofane, I know thy breast. These bitter tears of pain Flood me, and fall again Not into rest. Me, whose sole purpose is To gain one gainless kiss, And make a bird’s my bliss, Shrined in that nest. 36
1903 · PDF PAGE 104
…h art, And cover all the fiery bloom of wrong With blossoms blacker where the blood runs strong As our lips pale, their life fled to the heart. Surely we are as dead, we loving so, So bitterly, so keenly : let no breath Persuade us we are living and must die ! Better believe eternal kisses flow Under the strong rude current miscalled death, The lotus-river where our bodies lie ! 84
1903 · PDF PAGE 91
…, 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 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…
1903 · PDF PAGE 61
…the strong Arms gathered round 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 111
… : but I knew What to her hateful duty there was due, And how the hateful system stank thereof : I let her go, both weeping, both enough Heart-broken : no farewell went ever through— Words came not : only ever : “ I love you ! ” With broken kisses and stained cheeks of love. So all day long and half the night we wandered Down deep lanes and in gardens, like lost souls. Strong kisses that had surfeited a score Of earthly bridals in an hour we squandered ; And tears like fire, and looks like burning coals, Without a word passed on for evermore. 9…
1903 · PDF PAGE 77
…work on a baby’s thumb. The Yankee God frowned also on the plan. We had enough, no more. But I insist, Still thinking I was master of my heart : Saying, “ Another month to be a man, Another month to kiss her and be kissed, And then—all time to Magic and to Art !” 57
1903 · PDF PAGE 107
…ned and completed, consecrate and shrined : A perfect temple of fine amber wrought, Whose shrine’s the body and whose lamp the mind. The heart is priest and sacrifice in one ; And, where it sinned or sorrowed, shall atone. 87
1903 · PDF PAGE 74
…ne sole splendour that we prized ; And she, whose robe was far too slight to hide The babe-smooth breasts, was far to frail to cover Her heart’s true fire and music from her lover. 54
1903 · PDF PAGE 84
…ittle 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 ! O fairest ! Mutely lying, Fire lambent laid on water,—O ! the pain ! Kis…
1903 · PDF PAGE 89
…nd left me mad, and led through joy and pain To that unthinkable thing : I might atone No whit in this way : then that stubborn stone My heart grew tears : we were good friends again. Therefore at night I added nothing new : Only a little while I lay with her And with mere kisses sucked her soul away, And made my banquet of immortal dew, Demanding nothing but to minister To her desire until the dawn grew grey. 69
1903 · PDF PAGE 95
…might be dead, And I cursed heaven and my foolish head. I strove to turn towards old shapes of Art ; She, to some phantom faded from her heart. 75
1903 · PDF PAGE 102
…e 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 dewfall drips As she still sits and watches me to sleep. 82
1903 · PDF PAGE 94
… and lax we lay Breathing and holding : then in amorous play She laughed and left her body’s love to me, And kissed one kiss holding the heart of May, And kissed again, and kissed our lives away. 74
1903 · PDF PAGE 83
… And the world’s pulse stops, as God bends him lowly To hear and know. . . . . . . . For not the heights of heaven shall exalt her Whose heart is full of love’s dumb deity, Nor harp-strings lift me, nor the sound of psalter, Whose love is merged and molten into thee, Nor incense sweeter be by shrine or altar For you and me. . . . . . . . But like dove’s eyes where glamour lies a-dwelling, Like sweet well-water rising in the well, Strong steep black currents thrust up, flooding, welling, Into the moonlight, swift, adorable,— So kisses cluster, s…