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Page 1 of 11910 · PDF PAGE 4
…; there is no beat Of its blood ; there is no heat Of sacred fire upon my lips to sing. My heart is dead ; I say that name thrice over ; Rose !—Rose !—Rose !— Even as lover should call to lover ; There is no quickening, No flood, no fount that flows ; No water wells from the dead spring. My thoughts come singly, dry, contemptuous, Too cold for hate : all I can say is that they come From some dead sphere without me ; Singly they come, beats of a senseless drum Jarred by a fool, harsh, unharmonious. There is no sense within me or about me ; Yet e…
1910 · PDF PAGE 3
ROSA DECIDUA “ O Rose, thou art sick ! The invisible worm That flies in the night In the howling storm Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy, And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.”—BLAKE. ROSE of the World ! If so, then what a world ! What worm at its red heart lay curled From the beginning ? Plucked and torn and trampled And utterly corrupt is she That was the queen-flower unexampled In gardens goodlier than Arcady. O Thou ! whose body was my lyre, whose soul Lay on my mouth like a live coal ! This time thou hearest not my song ; thin…
1910 · PDF PAGE 13
…all these thunders venomously hurled Stop. My head strikes the floor ; one cry, the old cry, Strikes at the sky in its exquisite agony : Rose ! Rose o’ th’ World !
1910 · PDF PAGE 10
…etes in an amorous bout to make Some child to tread upon that snake. But ever the worm slipped, escaped ; its spires Here crushed, there rose the stronger for the pressure That gave it purchase ; keener flamed the fires In its eyes triumphant. Now its soul asserts Its master-pleasure ; The worm exerts Its adult might, and in one bout The spine snaps of that child of Love and Pity, And mangled he falls out Of the fight. Just so child Hercules Strangled two serpents in his pretty Red fists, achieved twelve labours, won to ease, And was done down …
1910 · PDF PAGE 12
…e. I am so wrecked, so rent That one seems brag, the other sentiment. I cannot leave the present ; I will not pose There lies the rotten rose And stinks. That is the truth ; the rest is gloss. My loss was total loss. So close that rose lay to my heart, its fall Was the catastrophe of all.
1910 · PDF PAGE 6
…ome sordid sorceress ; Incapable of action or control, Yet a black gulph to drown so strong a soul ! . . . He lay close curled within my rose’s heart. There is no blame ; yet what avails all art ? See ! I reel back beneath the blow of her breath As she comes smiling to me : that disgust Changes her drunken 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 degra…
1910 · PDF PAGE 9
…t, Jews’ hearts, Old women’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 n…