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…That had degraded Glasgow’s grimiest stews, With all the knowledge of despair Striking me cunningly, striking everywhere, Mutilating the corpse of my dead love With such a savagery, Intensity above
ROSA DECIDUA All understanding, that it bleeds again As a corpse should bleed at the murderer’s touch ! Then, not content, she must needs smutch All my past purifying pain, Turning all life to a thing fouler than Aught yet imaginable to man ! Who asks me for my tears ? She flings the body of my sweet dead child Into my face with hell’s own epitaph, Profanes that shrine Of infinite love and infinite loss, My empty shrine, the one shrine undefiled, My one close-claspèd cross— And hers as much as mine ! Profanes it with a hideous laugh And a lie f…
… won to ease, And was done down to death and madness by The subtle poison that himself distilled. So all the God in life is chilled To a corpse. The informing one ? God’s a cast clout Of a leper ! Leave me here, corruptest of earth’s whores To scrape my sores ! Cry like a dog and run about the city ! There is no word left, now the deed is dead ! No thought of her is in me ; I am a stranger To all that dream of danger And bliss that Rose was. The green shoots
…th that was more sweet than Lebanon And all the flowers and honey and spice thereof Ripe for my soul’s kiss, eagerly to cull, Now like a corpse three weeks drowned, swollen by sun And water and vermin. There she sways and stares, And with the jaw dropped all awry—first swears, Then lurches ; then she slobbers unctuously : “ I am not old : I am quite beautiful ; How have I lost your love ? ” Pitiful ! Pitiful ! Pitiful ! This is no tragedy of little tears. This worm was in her blood Lurking for thrice five years, And now I see him—that old slime…
…pon the flagstones. Not one petal clings Upon the stalk of life or memory. Stain Not one pale thought with blushes ; my soul’s dead As a corpse flung out of the tideway on The stinking flats of London mud. The springs Are dry beyond appeal ; dull grey like lead (And heavier) is my soul’s carrion. If she came pleasing now, pure passionate, and sane, I would not take her back again.