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Page 1 of 11910 · PDF PAGE 117
… ! The Lord hath listened unto thy lament, The ululation of that wolfish stress ; And I am sent To heal thy loneliness. MIRIAM Ah ! thou art not as he that saw me To-day. Thou art comelier than he, And softly mayest thou draw me From this perplexity. But hast thou — hast thou such a thing of fear (Like an old giant’s knotty spear) As he ? Thou dost not laugh and leer As he did. No ! I will not show my face She drops her veil. Stand back, stand back a space ! She advances toward him.
1910 · PDF PAGE 116
…’s unfathomable mirror, That, laughing back upon me laughing, lies. I will creep in — afar From the frenzy of yon nameless star. But who art thou Descending in a cloud of cherubim ? A moon-white sickle crowns that flashing brow ; Thine head like the wise bird Splendidly grim That utters that unutterable word ; Thy body like the bright sun in his strength ; And all thy virgin length Armed with the sword and balances, Gold as the ultimate galaxies — Thou art evanished. Surely the Presence of the Lord wast thou
1910 · PDF PAGE 27
…re consideration I drop the Revd. C. Verey of “ Clouds without Water ” — it is only one more satire. The invention was not cowardice but art. My sympathies are entirely with the alleged author of the Quatorzains ; in a world of Winnington-Ingrams it is about the best that any one can do. At the same time, I have a foible : I should like to pro- duce ideal poetry ; poetry free from the false conditions of modern crapulence. “ Clouds without Water ” and this World’s Tragedy are mostly nonsense to a Nina Olivier or a Dorothy Lamb, those avatars of…
1910 · PDF PAGE 137
84 THE WORLD’S TRAGEDY. GOVINDA I have a gipsy girl Skilled in the mystic art. She knows the trick to curl Dried leaves in fire, and augur thence. I bought her in the mart From an old Greek — a vile old man ! He told me she was a Bohemian ; And by a fabulous conjuring with cards Indeed she can divine. CHAU So can our bards. These girls are shifty. GOVINDA Maybe so ; but list ! (I pray you) She can take an amethyst And see a thousand visions. CHAU So can I
1910 · PDF PAGE 156
THE BLUE DWARF. I03 Fighting the leanness of thy lechery That hags thee — Faugh ! MAGDA Art thou not lewd with me ? ISSA Ay ! and the rot of Egypt pays me for’t. MAGDA To match thy rotten soul, thou pimping ort ! Marrowless bone ! Dry fig ! ISSA Enough, black bitch ! The Seventy shall stone thee for a witch. MAGDA More than enough. I’ll call thy darling itch, Thy— He fists her in the abdomen. ISSA Take the name back to thy bloated belly ! Speak, and I kick thy carcass to a jelly !
1910 · PDF PAGE 26
…l life, the life of Nature, is perfectly “ sane ” and “ wholesome ”. In a perfect society I should regard even my “ Alice ” as perverted art : for in a sane world one is insane to proclaim sanity. But art (which is the Word of the Masters to the World) must move with that world and follow it into its corruption, redeeming the same. The simple humanity, the great guffawing indecency, of Shakespeare is well enough for the pagan society of Eliza- beth. The splendid savage Jehovah is sane enough and grand enough for nomadic Israel. But since then t…
1910 · PDF PAGE 165
II2 THE WORLD’S TRAGEDY. Adonis, Attis, Mithras, and the rest ; And if there lack some detail — ISSA Thou art wise Enough to write in all the prophecies Fulfilled. That’s settled, then. JOHN I’d love to see The goggling eyes of duped posterity, Its mouth agape (while priests scoop out its poke) At the wild sequel of our harmless joke. ISSA Only one further fret balls up my brain : — The nuisance, if I have to rise again. JOHN Fear not ! The style suffices. ISSA Then be off, And tell the Seventy my bitter scoff
1910 · PDF PAGE 90
…s glassy red At the buffet of the wind On its cheek all wrinkle-lined. Ah ! thou Lord God ! thus thrice I made thy sacrifice. Still thou art dumb, Though I am duly come
1910 · PDF PAGE 170
… gone ; and noble-strong is the scarred brow of his agony. ALEXANDER. In the puissance of my will, Issa, I uphold thee still. ISSA. Thou art ? ALEXANDER Keeper of the Way.
1910 · PDF PAGE 171
…egotten, miscreate Dwarf as thou wast, the child of hate ; Thou who hast felt the sordidness Of thine own effect on thine own distress ; Art come thereby to the stature of man By my power, who am Pan. And by this death shalt laugh to know Thy father’s final overthrow. My soul the heights and depths has spanned. I hold the star-streams in mine hand. I am the master of life and death And of every spirit that quickeneth. Yea ! in the light of knowledge, Pan
1910 · PDF PAGE 177
… should they hold To the clear sunlight and the age of gold, — Scarce a tithe of all I see, Yet — thou dost not pity me ? ALEXANDER Thou art near death : thy corpse light dawns on us. See ! the tenebrous glare and venomous And all it shews. Enough ! I leave thee, man, To hide me in the secret place of Pan Beneath the fallen groves Arcadian. He fades away, as if the new light, making the filth visible, made him invisible. ISSA I am nailed here too fast : — I strain in agony aghast ; For I have blotted out the sun From the sight of everyone.
1910 · PDF PAGE 128
…his corner in the filth. THE HAG, addressing the baboon. Ho ! her time is not yet come ; We may dance together, dear. Say, how beautiful art thou With thy shining shame protruding ! Darling, apeling, why so glum ? Turn away that rosy sphere ; Show me the delicious brow Ever brooding, ever brooding
1910 · PDF PAGE 107
…s throat Like an enchanted harp that playeth Melodies, melodies magniloquent of death. Yea ! o thou golden wan strange-smiling one, Thou art not only cold. Thine ivory came from fierce bull-elephants That trampled Persians in their battle-rage ; Thy gold was found by men most grave and sage Among the sands of a strange river. How my breast pants ! How my sides quiver ! Surely the breath of God is bubbling in These veins, their blood that held its calm discourse Lit with electric force By Him for whom I have done sin, Sin grievous against every …
1910 · PDF PAGE 81
…! but some evil things have brooded here Over the sleepers. May it be indeed The truth that some strange fate threatens the world ? That Art and Love and Beauty, to renew Their glory, must be bathed in their own blood ? But who shall understand the Soul of Pan ? Involved in All and still apart from All ! For steeped therein as I am all my life, I know but exquisite beatitude, Knowing the whole, Then who shall know or care What may befall the part ? One must remain ; Many must change. Then all is well. The strife Is but the ferment of the forwar…
1910 · PDF PAGE 155
…ese delirious hours. John’s lips are cool like olive-oil — and thine, Even at the best, like some black stormy wine. MAGDA Oh beast thou art ! Didst thou not surely quicken me With child ? ISSA Thy lewdness and thy lowness sicken me. Nay, let the heavy-fringed purple lashes Lie still — my lust is burnt to bitter ashes ! The wrinkled eyepits black with grime and kohl Are like black bogs to suck away my soul. The coarse vermilion on thy cheeks is fire Of hell to blast the charred stump of desire. The blue tattoo-marks stain thy mouth like bruises…
1910 · PDF PAGE 30
… on the accidents of the age. You never find a single impure line in any of these au- thors, any gloating on impurity. The laughter is hearty, there is no schoolboy sniggering — no consciousness of guilt. (So even with Keats’ Gadfly and Sharing Eve’s Apple ; Browning’s bawdy jests in Pippa Passes, the Ring and the Book, One Word More, La Saisiaz and elsewhere ; cleaner, truly, than the furtive eroticism in Prometheus Unbound. Shelley was more consciously under the curse of Jesus.) It is this consciousness of sin which is to my mind the essen- t…
1910 · PDF PAGE 38
PREFACE. XXXIII — what a washerwoman lost to mankind ! was the French nation’s epitaph upon her — drove the last nail into the coffin of art in England. Though ’twas needless cruelty : whom have we had of the first rank in England since Eli- zabeth but the Revolutionaries ? Blake, Shelley, Keats, Coleridge, Byron, Swinburne, Swift, Butler, Milton, every one exiled, starved, bullied, driven insane ; except Milton, whose supreme hypocrisy saved him, as it damned the nation for ever. Anyhow, bad as it was, Victoria made it worse, and, under a quee…