FOLLOW A WORD THROUGH THE COLLECTION
Search the corpus.
Phrase search ignores case and repeated whitespace. All-words search finds whole words anywhere on the same page. OCR errors can affect results.
4 matching pages
Page 1 of 11910 · PDF PAGE 8
6 ROSA DECIDUA Were too like heaven—and heaven’s somehow to earn, No doubt—no way that I know ! Hell’s enough If hell would only burn And silence the one devil-word of love. Ay ! death slinks off. I have a child that claims my life To keep from knowledge of her mother’s fate, To keep from heritage thereof, To shield from the world’s scoff, To watch, stamp out the seeds of madness in her. God ! that hast held me back from hate, Be merciful to me a sinner And ward me, warding her ! As it is written : Excepting Adonai build the house, they labour …
1910 · PDF PAGE 9
…men’s tongues, by monstrous arts ; But this my poison drips, without endeavour, From the mere soul of the world’s rose ! What alchemy of hell this ronyon Venus has skill of ! Wonder that I live ! This has been like a bag-pipe drone to wail Its monotone through high, low, fast and slow. It has been like a secret cancer, Forcing all servants of the life to give Their work to the usurper ; all its themes assail The main word Life ; they build their archipelago Of poison in each sea where life was holy. Their questions have no answer, But all’s con…
1910 · PDF PAGE 6
…nken lust Into a shriek of hate—half conscious still (Beneath the obsession of the will) Of all she was—before her death, her death ! So hell boils over in her, and she rages —It seems through countless ages— With all the vile abuse 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
1910 · PDF PAGE 7
… 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 flung with a curse ; and I must hear, And must not stamp on the snake, because, forsooth This was my love, my peace, my faith, my truth, The rosebud of my youth ! It was—it is not—it can never be…