1903 · PDF PAGE 24
Alice: An Adultery
WHAT LAY BEFORE
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Page 1 of 11903 · PDF PAGE 7
Alice: An Adultery
…rew from my enter- tainer the information that it was “ only her husband,” indicating the yellow-haired girl with the stem of her short clay pipe. She added that he was dying. Curiosity, Compassion’s Siamese twin, prompted a desire to see the sufferer. The old lady rose, not without difficulty, lifted the curtain, and let it fall behind me as I entered the gloom which lay beyond. On a bed, in that half-fathomed twilight, big with the scent of joss-sticks smouldering in a saucer before a little bronze Buddha-rupa, lay a man, still young, the tra…
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1903 · PDF PAGE 75
Alice: An Adultery
…eed.’ Ever since you loved her.” Two Gentlemen of Vernona. Again the unveiled goddess of delight Watched us at midnight : there my lover lay Child-breasted, maiden as the rose of day Dawning on snowy mountains : through deep night Her body gleamed self-luminously white With the sweet soul that sundered the quick clay, And all her being was a sense of May ;— Scent conquering colour, soul out-running sight. Not with the Lysian, nor Iacchian dew Of frenzy covered, but with warmer flakes Of Aphrodite shed upon our life, We clung still closer, till …
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1903 · PDF PAGE 96
Alice: An Adultery
…hat rest May a man know until his quiet breast Beats to her tune ? I garbed me as a priest And moved towards my Host—on God I feast ! We lay in naked chastity, caressed Child-like or dreaming, till the dawn repressed Our sighs : that nuptial yet hath never ceased. That was the best : far sundered by the tide Dolorous, endless as Oceanus, A serpent-river girdling the large earth, Still in that pure embrace we bring to birth A thousand pleasant children born of us, Sacred and sinless, if unsanctified. 76
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1903 · PDF PAGE 73
Alice: An Adultery
…ue 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 to-night she lay In my intense embraces : so the spell Moved her : “ I love you,” said she. So we kept, Remurmuring that one phrase until the day. 53
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1903 · PDF PAGE 68
Alice: An Adultery
…s slack To strong gripe of a devil-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
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1903 · PDF PAGE 89
Alice: An Adultery
…hen 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
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1903 · PDF PAGE 102
Alice: An Adultery
THE FORTY-FIRST DAY “ I am sick.” Antony and Cleopatra. How things are changed since Alice was so ill ! I, being in high fever, lay in bed, While 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 lul…
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1903 · PDF PAGE 94
Alice: An Adultery
…ury that reveres No God, no heaven but its own hell’s bliss. So after desperate shifts of modesty We could no more ; loosened 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
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1903 · PDF PAGE 13
Alice: An Adultery
fulvous and fulgurous lady grew comparatively tranquil ; the pair withdrew. The old woman lay sprawled along the divan sunk in a drunken torpor. I unrolled the manuscript and read. Brutal truth-telling humour, at times perhaps too Rabelaisian ; lyrics, some of enchanting beauty, others painfully imitative ; sonnets of exceedingly unequal power, a perfectly heartless introduction (some fools would call it pathetic), and, as a synthesis of the whole, an impression of profound sadness and, perhaps, still deeper joy, were my reward. Together with a…
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