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… me see your face Or hear your voice or touch you. Ah ! the hour ! He moves. Come back, come back, my life’s one flower ! Come back. One kiss before you leave me. So ! Stop—turn—one little kiss before you go ; It is my right—you must. Oh no ! Oh no !
…aking tongue Breaks : I must go, go onward to the quest. Again the cursed cry : “ What quest is this ? Is it worth heaven in thy lover’s kiss ? A queen, a queen, to kiss and never tire ! Thy queen, quick-breathing for your twin desire ! ” I shudder, for the mystery of bliss ; I go, heart crying and a soul on fire ! “ Resolve all question by a moonward tread. Follow the moon ! ” Even so the king had said.
… SOUL OF OSIRIS. That draws its music from some bubbling well, Looks long, looks deadly, looks desirable, The touch that fires, the next kiss, and the whole Body embracing, symbol of the soul, And all the perfect passion of an hour. Turn to me, pluck that amaranthine flower, And leave the doubtful blossoms of the sky ! You dare not kiss me ! dare not draw you nigh Lest I should lure you to remain ! nor speak Lest you should catch the blood within your cheek Mantling. You dared enough—so long ago !— When to my blossom body clean as snow You pres…
…hy love is cold ; My arms are empty, and my lips can hold No converse with thee far away like this. O for that communing pregnant with a kiss That is reborn when lips are set together To link our souls in one desirous tether, And weld our very bodies into one. Ah fiend Jehovah, what then have we done To earn thy curse ? Is love like ours too strong To dwell before thee, and do thy throne no wrong ? Art thou grown jealous of the fiery band ? Lo ! thou hast spoken, and thy strong command Bade earth and air divide, and on the sea Thy spirit moved—…
…e note that sighs ! Call, till its beauty bend to earth, Meet thee and lift thee and devise Strange loves within the gleaming girth, And kisses underneath the star Where on her brows its seven rays are. Call her, the maiden of thy sleep, And fashion into human shape The whirling fountains fiery and deep, The incense-columns that bedrape Her glimmering limbs, when shadows creep Among blue tresses that escape The golden torque that binds her hair, Whose swarthy splendours drench the air. She comes, she comes, the spirit glances In quick delight t…
56 THE SOUL OF OSIRIS. TO LAURA. ISTRESS, I pray thee, when the wind Exults upon the roaring sea, Come to my bosom, kissed and kind, And sleep upon the lips of me. Dream on my breast of quiet days, Kindled of slow absorbing fire. Sleep, while I ponder on the ways And secret paths of my desire. Dream, while my restless brain probes deep The mysteries of its magic power, The secrets of forgotten sleep, The birth of knowledge as a flower. Slow and divine thy gentle breath Woos my warm throat : my spirit flies Beyond the iron walls of death, And se…
…ield Grew bloody with hot ranks of dead, I smote amain with sword and shield, My brows with mingled blood were red ; And on my cheek the kiss of hell, The hatred of my Jezebel. I waited many days. At last The rushing of a chariot grew Frightful through all the city vast, Men were afraid. But I—I knew Jehu was here, whose sword should dip Deep in my love’s adulterous lip. The spirit filled me. And behold ! I saw her dead stare to the skies ; I came to her ; she was not cold, But burning with old infamies. On her incestuous mouth I fell, And lost…
THE COURT OF THE PROFANE. 7 For, swooning at the fervid lips Of Artemis, the maiden kisses Sob, and the languid body slips Down to enamelled wildernesses. Fallen and loose the shaken tresses ; Fallen the sandal and girdling gold, Fallen the music manifold Of moving limbs and strange caresses, And deadly passion that possesses The magic ecstasy of these Mad maidens, tender as blue seas. Night spreads her yearning pinions, The baffled day sinks blind to sleep ; The evening breeze outswoons the sun’s Dead kisses to the swooning deep. Upsoars the m…
… In the intolerable flames of hair That clothe my body from your head ; you win The devil’s bargain ; I am yours to kill, Yours, for one kiss ; my spirit for your skin ! O bitter love, consuming all my will ! O love destroying, that hast drained my life Of all those fountains of dear blood that fill My heart ! O woman, would I call you wife ? Would I content you with one touch divine To flood your spirit with the clinging strife Y
…went, And wrestled with myself, consumed With passion for that sacrament Of shame. From that day unto this My cheek desires that hideous kiss. Her hate, her scorn, her cruel blows, Fill my whole life, consume my breath ; Her red-fanged hatred in me glows ; I lust for her, and hell, and death ; I see that ghastly look, and yearn Toward the brands of her that burn. Sleep shuns me ; dreams divide the night (My parched throat thirsty for her veins), That she and I with deep delight Suck from death’s womb infernal pains, Whose fire consumes, destroy…
… grove, Where burn the sanctities of love : Nor may the foot of man be known, Nor evil eyes of mothers thrown On maidens that desire the kiss Only of maiden Artemis. But horned and huntress from the skies, She bends her lips upon the breeze, And pure and perfect in her eyes, Burn magical virginity’s Sweet intermittent sorceries. When the slow wind from her sweet word In all their conchéd ears is heard. And like the slumber of the seas, There murmur through the holy trees The kisses of the goddess keen, And sighs and laughters caught between.
… SOUL OF OSIRIS. SYNTHESIS. HEN I think of the hundreds of women I have loved from time to time, White throats and living bosoms where a kiss might creep or climb, Smooth eyes and trembling fingers, faint lips or mur- derous hair, All tunes of love’s own music, most various and rare ; When I look back on life, as a mariner on the deep Sees, tranced, the white wake foaming, fancies the nereids weep ; As, on a mountain summit in the thunders and the snow, I look to the shimmering valley and weep : I loved you so ! For a moment cease the winds of …
…SOUL OF OSIRIS. I crept like sleep toward the place That held for me her evil head ; I bent like sin above her face That dying she might kiss me dead. I whispered : “ Jezebel.” She turned, And her deep eyes with hatred burned. “ Ah ! prophet, come to mock at me And gloat on mine exceeding pain ? ” “ Nay, but to give my soul to thee, And have thee spit at me again ! ” She smiled—I know she smiled—she sighed, Bit my lips through, and drank, and died ! Her murders and her blasphemies, Her whoredoms, God has paid at last ; Upon my bosom close she l…
…ed and very glad, Whose breasts are lordlier for the pain they had, Whose arms cleave closer than thy spouse’s own ! Thy spouse—O lover, kiss me, and atone ! All my veins burst for love, my ripe breasts beat And lay their bleeding blossoms at thy feet ! Spurn me no more ! O bid these strangers go ; Turn to my lips till their cup overflow ; Hurt me with kisses, kill me with desire, Consume me and destroy me with the fire Of bleeding passion straining at the heart, Touched to the core by sweetnesses that smart Bitten by fiery snakes, whose poison…
…worded in the temple sky ! O thou who knowest my most secret name, Who whisperest when only thou and I Make up our universe : bestow thy kiss : Arise ! Come, let us pierce the old abyss ! Rise ! Move ! Appear ! Let us go forth together, Into the solemn passionless profound, Into the darkness, and the thrilling weather, Into the silence louder than all sound, Into the vast implacable inane ! Come, let us journey thither once again !
…lent river ! O sea of seas ! O flower of all the flowers ! O fire ! O spirit ! Beam thou on for ever Through æons of illimitable hours ! Kiss thou my forehead, let thy tender breath Woo me to life, and my desire to death ! I shall be ready for it by-and-by, That sharp initiation, when the whole Body is torn with sundering pangs, and I, The very conscious essence of the soul, Am rent with agony, as when the pale Christ heard the shriek of the dividing veil. That awful mystery, its heart torn out, Palpitates on the altar-stone of life : That brok…
…wind to his mighty lair Even in the caverns of the womb of dawn ; To take the South wind and his fire withdrawn And clothe him with your kiss ; to seize the West In his gold palace where the sea-winds rest, And hurl him ravening on the breaking foam ; To find the Spirit in his glimmering home And draw his secret from unwilling lips ; To master earthquake, and the dread eclipse ; To dominate the red volcanic rage ; To quench the whirlpool, conquering war to wage Against all gods not wholly made as ye, O patient, and O marvellous ! I see, I see b…
… sea shot through With golden glances of a fiercer star. Turn to me, bend above me ; you may char These olive shoulders with an old-time kiss, And fix thy mouth upon me for such bliss Of sudden rage rekindled. Turn again, And make delight the minister of pain, And pain the father of a new delight, And light a lamp of torture for the night Too grievous to be borne without a cry To rend the very bowels of the sky And make the archangel gasp—a sudden pang, Most like a traveller stricken by the fang Of the black adder whose squat head springs up, A…
…n a nobler air ; I know, I know it in my soul, despite of this, The clinging darkness of the Long Ago, Cruel as death, and closer than a kiss,