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Page 1 of 21903 · PDF PAGE 42
…house where Beauty sate Still but exultant, silent but elate In its own happiness and majesty Of a mild soul unstirred by rivalry Of any life beyond its own sweet state. I looked around me, wondered whether Fate Had found at last a woman’s love for me. I had no hope : she was so grave and calm, So shining with the dew-light of her soul, So beautiful beyond a woman’s share. Yet—here ! Soft airs, and perfume through the palm, And moonlight in the groves of spice, control The life that would not love and yet be fair. 22
1903 · PDF PAGE 78
… My comedy has changed its blithe aspect To bitterest face of tragedy ; she said : “ Alas ! O soul of mine ! I am surely dead, Seeing my life is by a serpent wrecked Of sore disease : but spare me, and reflect That in few months I die : but were I wed— O lover ! O desire discomfited ! I die at once : consider, and elect.” How could I otherwise than spare my wife ? With tender lips and fingers one strong kiss Swooned slave-wise even before the gate of bliss, No more : for I rose up and cursed my life, Hating the God that made us to dissever So s…
1903 · PDF PAGE 32
…t 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 ; 10
1903 · PDF PAGE 88
…dew bedims Their quivering skins : lip fastened unto lip : Whole soul and body frenzied meet and clip ; And the breath staggers, and the life-blood swims ! Terrible gods chant black demoniac hymns As the frail cords of honour strain and slip. For in the midst of that tremendous tide The mighty vigour of a god was mine ! Drunk with desire, her lamentations died. The dove gave place a moment to the swine ! Rapturous draughts of madness ! Out she sighed Uttermost life’s love, and became a bride. Beneath the sonnet, in pencil, and feebler hand, are…
1903 · PDF PAGE 71
… 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 droops its sails and is drifted in silence to sleep. 51
1903 · PDF PAGE 17
For it is abominable to correlate the life and work of any man, whenever that work approaches the standard of genius. Work of that sort is perfectly independent of life. The purest poems spring alike from the foulest soil and from the cleanest kept. Any stimulus may stimulate. Knowing Shelley almost by heart, the present writer is still ignorant of his domestic affairs—and thanks God for it. Here, however, we have no work of genius to save from soilure. The poem is less than the man, as the editor has pointed out in his sufficiently able introd…
1903 · PDF PAGE 11
He sank back contented. “ I have prayed to my god for many days,” he said, “ and by one of the least of my life’s miracles you are here ; worthy to receive my trust. For when I knew that I was to die, I destroyed all the papers which held the story of my life—all save one. That I saved ; the only noble passage, perhaps—among the many notable. Men will say that it is stained ; you, I think, should be wiser. It is the story of how the Israelites crossed the Red Sea. They were not drowned, you know (he seemed to lapse into a day dream), and they c…
1903 · PDF PAGE 39
She fades as starlight on the stream, As dewfall in the dell ; All life and love, one ravishing gleam Stolen from sleep’s crucible ; That kiss, that vision is a dream :— And I—most miserable ! Still Echo wails upon the steep, “ To love—and to forget ! ” Still sombre whispers from the deep Sob through Night’s golden net, And waft upon the wings of sleep The name of Margaret. 17
1903 · PDF PAGE 57
…iced 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
1903 · PDF PAGE 59
…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
1903 · PDF PAGE 46
REINCARNATION In life what hope is always unto men ? Stories of Arthur that shall come again To cleanse the Earth of her eternal stain, Elias, Charlemagne, Christ. What matter then ? What matter who, or how, or even when ? If we but look beyond the primal pain, And trust the Future to write all things plain, Graven on brass with predestined pen. This is the doom. Upon the blind blue sky A little cloud, no larger than an hand ! Whether I live and love, or love and die, I care not : either way I understand. To me—to live is Christ ; to die is gai…
1903 · PDF PAGE 104
…od and bright with 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 114
III Is love indeed eternal ? Otherwise Is evolution an eternal plan ? Must I move upward in the stream of Man, God-ward : my life as Christ to sacrifice, As Buddha to repress : to grow so wise, Space, time shall lie within my finger-span ? I know not which I wish : either I can ; Not both, unless all meditation lies. I am not sure : if love as great as ours May not be God to part of us at least, Leaving the Rest to find its heights and powers In other spheres ; that, night’s enamoured priest ; This, on the lake the dewy lotus-flowers That lift …
1903 · PDF PAGE 35
…thin the sea— Because that rolls all landless from Japan. I did not know until I missed it here How beautiful that beauty is to me, That life that bears Death’s sigil traced too clear, Blue lines within the beauty that is man. (I) Line 4 cannot with any certainty be deciphered. 13
1903 · PDF PAGE 80
…perately ill at morn. Hour by sweet hour I watched her sorrowing, While the strong fever fought unconquering With native coolness of her life, o’er-worn Or poisoned ; thus I fought the long forlorn Battle all day, until the evening Brought back sweet health on sleep and noiseless wing : Strong love of the long battle was reborn. The child slept elsewhere that she might sleep well. Therefore, not fearing anything, I came ; Lit my love’s candle at her body’s flame, And fought not with the fevers now that swell Our burning lips and bosoms, until s…
1903 · PDF PAGE 75
…lour, 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 the soul ran through Body to body, twined like sunny snakes, Sinlessly knowing we were man and wife. 55
1903 · PDF PAGE 115
…ife I shall at last gather the whole vow’s breath— Not heaven nor hell shall break our solemn troth. love you, and shall love you all my life. I love you, and shall love you after death. 95
1903 · PDF PAGE 73
…ear 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 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
1903 · PDF PAGE 107
… spirit’s kiss ; the sleepless to-and-fro Movement of love’s desire too strong to know Or care for that it takes its substance of— As if life’s burden were not drear enough Or death’s deliverance not so far and slow. Our bodies almost perish, with one thought Crowned 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 98
…, And tune our kisses to a terrene rhyme. So, once again before we left the ship With right good will our bodies cling and slip, And the life’s flame sinks as the kisses climb. There never has been such a supreme kiss Since heaven and earth began to be as this ! Doubt nothing of it ! yet our spirits knew Its savour was as roses fallen to dust : Our proper food was of Selenian dew, And love without a battle conquered lust. 78