Phrase search ignores case and repeated whitespace. All-words search finds whole words anywhere on the same page. OCR errors can affect results.
…ould not, loving to see her children laugh, Let cowards twit them with their mother’s lust. Even our own purity confirmed the trust. How long, O lord, how long ? Too long by half Till men read, wondering, wedlock’s epitaph. 85
AT LAST O tearless sorrow of long years, depart ! O joy of minutes that be ages long, Come ! Let the choral pulse and strength of song Quicken, and the fire of lute and lyre dart, An arrow red with blood 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 miscal…
…ed 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 shame Nearly surrendered the sweet citadel. 60
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
…e chance before its wave retire. Not so : this trial was the tiniest Man ever knew, confronted afterward With giant fears and passions ;—long to fight And last to yield a Maenad-swelling breast Unto a furious Dionysian horde Drunk not with wine, but with avenging night. 43
THE TWENTIETH DAY “ ‘ Val.’ How long hath she been deformed ? ‘ Speed.’ 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 fl…
…ned.” Cymbeline. In the dim porchway where the sea’s deep boom Under our very feet made ceaseless song, We sate, remote, the lone lanai along, Sequestered from the young moon in the gloom Of early even : then the tender bloom Shone on her cheek and deepened as 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— Brea…
…: 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. 91
THE TWENTY-SECOND DAY “ I’ll have her : but I will not keep her long.” Richard III It was impossible that she should come Over the leagues of summer-coloured sea Alone with love and laughter and tears and me To the toy land of the chrysanthemum, Where all the flowers lack scent, the birds are dumb, The fruits are tasteless : where the jewelled lea And the many-leavéd greenery Is dwarf : French gem-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 : Sayi…
… FORTY-SEVENTH DAY “ Thou ever young, fresh, lov’d, and delicate wooer.” Timon of Athens. The little money that we had to spend Was gone long since : the little more I stole Followed : I pledged than all things but my soul (On which the usurers refused to lend) To raise our utmost, till a ship should send Much plenty from the Sunset : to control And stop her yet a little while, the whole I meant to waste before the week should end. Thus we went Northward to the capital, Desolate huts and ways funereal, An hateful town ; earthquake and heat and …
…t eyes ! The secret knowledge of our secrecies Shone from their distance with a subtle flame, And gave to pudency a rosier name When the long lashes drooped, and saintlier sighs Took softer meanings, till my arteries Throbbed with the glad desire that went and came. “ I charge you in the very name of love.” Quoth she : “ We have all day to steal below And snatch short kisses out of danger’s throat. Why beg you night : is not the day enough ?” But I : “ The night is panting and aglow to feel our hair distraught and limbs afloat.” 72
…ose 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 ! Kiss me, O heart, as if we both were dying ! Kiss, as we could not ever k…
… 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
… Romeo and Juliet. Sweet are the swift hard struggles ere the kiss, When the frail body blushes into tears, And short breaths cancel the long sighs, and fears Constrain delight, until their import is Made foolish when the struggle’s synthesis Leads to hot armistice, as dewy spheres Glow, and increase the fury 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 on…
THE THIRTY-SEVENTH DAY “ By long and vehement suit I was seduced To make room for him in my husband’s bed.” King John. Mortals are not for nectar all the time : Ambrosia feeds not men ; nepenthe’s sip Is only for a moment : then we dip Back to the earth and leave the bed sublime, 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 no…
…his little black Buddha-rupa. There was a calm like unto—might I say, an afterwards ? “ There is an end of joy and sorrow, Peace all day long, all night, all morrow,” he began drowsily. A shrill voice rose in a great curse. The hoarse anger of drunken harlotry snarled back. “ Not a drop more,” shouted my friend, adding many things*. It was time for my return. “ I will let them know,” I whispered. “ Good- bye.” “ ‘ There is not one thing with another ; But Evil saith to Good : ‘ My brother—’ ” he went on unheeding. I left him to his peace. My re…
…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
…ecise to give pain to any person still living. His handwriting was abomin- ably difficult, some words quite indecipherable. I have spent long and laborious hours in conjecture, and have, I hope, restored his meaning in almost 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 beca…
… and the in- famous 21st day as examples of what I mean. The secret of the 10th day is peculiarly obscure, and apparently refers to some long-past event in the author’s life. To turn for a moment to an examin- tion of the facts as found in the poem. 1st day.—They are on a tropical island in the Pacific. 6th day and 11th.—The man is a meddler with magic and a believer in the Theosophical Doctrines of Evolution (4th day), and yet also in existence of Gods.* 8th day.—He calls his island “ the extreme west of all the world.” 16th day.—“ Alice ” had…