You are clear
O rose, cut in rock,
hard as the descent of hail.
I could scrape the colour
from the petals
like spilt dye from a rock.
If I could break you
I could break a tree.
If I could stir
I could break a tree--
I could break you.
O wind, rend open the heat,
cut apart the heat,
rend it to tatters.
Fruit cannot drop
through this thick air--
The long, grim years with iron tread
Move down the shuttered isle
Of time's unrecking labyrinth
Paved with forgotten dead.
And I, a feather in their wake,
Gaze long and tremblingly
Into these sunless corridors,
Praying the light to break!
Many cages round me,
Bar on bar
Stand grim, forbidding!
Ghostly pressures
Clutch my heart.
I gaze with eyes unseeing —
Whereunto may I wander free?
Alas, alas!
My garden walks lie inwardly!
There is a bird that hangs head-down and cries
Between the mango leaves and passion vines.
Below, a spotted serpent twines
And blunts its head against the yellowing skies.
Along the warping ground a turtle scrapes,
And tortured lie glazed fishes in marsh grass.
Across the sky that burnishes like brass
A bat veers, stupid with the yeast of grapes.
Out of the forest, panther, come,
Silken, supple, silent, lone —
Out of the forest, drooped with night —
To your delight.
Under bloom and over stone,
Out of the forest, panther, come.
Something sees and slips with you,
Something huge and gaunt and blue,
Lashes its tail and follows you :
You, pursued, still pursue. . . .
Sky with thunder on its rim
Closes and closes after you :
Trigger loin, swinging limb,
Go and go and go from him!
Brushing haunches, taut with dew,
Follow, follow, follow you.
Two monsters,
Iron and Coal,
Sleep in the darkness.
A poisonous scarlet breath blows over them,
And they awake hissing and writhing,
And spew forth blood-red vomit
In streams like fiery serpents.
Then from the reeking pools
A monstrous brood is born,
Black, strong, beautiful.
But we turn away our tired eyes,
And try to find the sky above the smoke-clouds.
I buried you deeper last night
You with your tears
And your tangled hair
You with your lips
That kissed so fair
I buried you deeper last night.
I buried you deeper last night
With fuller breasts
And stronger arms
With softer lips
And newer charms
I buried you deeper last night.
Deeper ...... aye, deeper
And again tonight
Till that gay spirit
That once was you
Do you hear the witches wailing?
Witches wailing, wailing, wailing,
Do you see the ghost robes trailing?
Ghost robes trailing, trailing, trailing
It is but a nighttime whisper,
But a whisper of the zephyr?
Or my soul in secret meeting
That dim soul whose fate is loving?
Tell me, tell me, tell me,
Voices of the Dusk.
Do you see those spirits lonely?
Spirits lonely, lonely, lonely.
Can they be for lost souls only?
Lost souls only, only, only.
Are they but the fearful phantoms,
Fearful phantoms from my fancy?
When Grandmother Polly had married and gone,
But before her father had given her Clem,
Or Joe, or Sandy, or Evaline--
Before he had given her any of them,
She used to live in a far-away place,
In a little cabin that was her home,
And all around were bushes and trees,
And the wolves could come.
At night they ran down out of the rocks
And bristled up their trembly fur.
They came and howled by Polly's door
And showed their little white teeth at her.
The light was burning very dim,
The little blaze was brown and red,
And I waked just in time to see
A panther going under the bed.
I saw him crowd his body down
To make it fit the little space.
I saw the streaks along his back,
And bloody bubbles on his face.
Long marks of light came out of my eyes
And went into the lamp--and there
Was Something waiting in the room--
I saw it sitting on a chair.
Its only eye was shining red,
Its face was very long and gray,
Its two bent teeth were sticking out,
And all its jaw was torn away.
I looked for him everywhere
Because I wanted him to play;
And then I found him on his bed
Asleep, but it was day.
His eyes were shut behind the lids--
He couldn't lift them up to see.
And I looked at him very long,
And something in him looked at me.
And he was something like a cat
That is asleep, or like a dog;
Or like a thing that's in the woods
All day behind a log.
And then I was afraid of it,
Of something that was sleeping there.
I didn't even say his name,
But I came down the stair.
Away beyond the Jarboe house
I saw a different kind of tree.
Its trunk was old and large and bent,
And I could feel it look at me.
The road was going on and on
Beyond to reach some other place.
I saw a tree that looked at me,
And yet it did not have a face.
It looked at me with all its limbs;
It looked at me with all its bark.
The yellow wrinkles on its sides
Were bent and dark.
And then I ran to get away,
But when I stopped to turn and see,
The tree was bending to the side
And leaning out to look at me.