If this is peace, this dead and leaden thing,
Then better far the hateful fret, the sting.
Better the wound forever seeking balm
Than this gray calm!
Is this pain's surcease? Better far the ache,
The long-drawn dreary day, the night's white wake,
Better the choking sigh, the sobbing breath
Than passion's death!
The tossing poplar in the wind
Shows underleaf of silver-white;
The roughness of the wind unkind
Torments her out of all delight.
But O that he were here
Whose blows and whose caresses alike were dear!
The great oak to the tearing blast
Stands steady with strong arms held wide,
So over him my anger passed,
When his rough usage hurt my pride.
But O that once again
I might arouse that passion, endure that pain!
I want to die while you love me,
While yet you hold me fair,
While laughter lies upon my lips
And lights are in my hair.
I want to die while you love me
And bear to that still bed
Your kisses—turbulent, unspent,
To warm me when I’m dead.
I want to die while you love me
Oh, who would care to live,
’Til love has nothing more to ask
And nothing more to give.
I dreamed you were the sea ;
I dreamed you pounded
With foamy fists, the sad face of the shore.
Waking, I lay beneath you,
And the room resounded
With the hoarse fury of the mounting ocean's roar.
You have freed me--
In opening wide the doors
Of flesh
You have freed me
Of the binding leash.
I have climbed the heights
Of white disaster
My body screaming
In the silver crash of passion ...
Before you gave yourself
To him
I had chained myself
For you.
But when at last
You lowered your proud flag
In surrender complete
I DREAMT, when I had talked with you,
God re-arranged the world in two,
And marshalled it in two great lines,
Bohemians and Philistines;
And well I knew, O well I knew,
Which host my heart would lead me to.
All honour to the Philistines,
Whose sober gods, in solid shrines,
Are Duty and Obedience,
Self-sacrifice and Common-sense.
With tender and untortured hearts,
They go their ways and play their parts.
I honour them, so let it be;
But O, their ways are not for me.
For I must go to join that throng,
So often ruthless, stained, and wrong,
There is something about Death
Like love itself!
If with some one with whom you have known passion
And the glow of youthful love,
You also, after years of life
Together, feel the sinking of the fire
And thus fade away together,
Gradually, faintly, delicately,
As it were in each other’s arms,
Passing from the familiar room—
That is a power of unison between souls
Like love itself!
A summer song it was,
Counting of many unseen stars
In an intangible sky
Making new milky ways--
Silver-shadow-paths that lead
From sapphire abysses
Into deeper abysses still.
The deeps of our souls
Lit by passion's burning flowers
Tremulous, timorous flames of silver,
That with thousand hands
Our hearts sought to pluck and scatter,
Or make barbed garlands
For love's nuptial hour.
Nuptial hour, briefer than a moment,
Longer than Heaven's Eternal summer,
The cloud-cymbals make the music of the thunder;
The lightning-maid dances to its measure;
While the breeze-devotees sing their prayer.
A worship of lunatics, this;
God-mad souls seeking peace;
Dervishes, whose agony knows no surcease.
No many-color-robed priest is here;
No conch-shell's flourish and blare;
No frankincense, myrrh, or perfume rare.
A worship of passion and powers;
A benediction of liquid flowers
Poured through a million silver showers.
How many times, like lotus lilies risen
Upon the surface of a river, there
Have risen floating on my blood the rare
Soft glimmers of my hope escaped from prison.
So I am clothed all over with the light
And sensitive beautiful blossoming of passion;
Till naked for her in the finest fashion
The flowers of all my mud swim into sight.
And then I offer all myself unto
This woman who likes to love me: but she turns
A look of hate upon the flower that burns
To break and pour her out its precious dew.
And slowly all the blossom shuts in pain,
And all the lotus buds of love sink over
To die unopened: when my moon-faced lover,
Kind on the weight of suffering, smiles again.
When first your glory shone upon my face
My body kindled to a mighty flame,
And burnt you yielding in my hot embrace
Until you swooned to love, breathing my name.
And wonder came and filled our night of sleep,
Like a new comet crimsoning the sky;
And stillness like the stillness of the deep
Suspended lay as an unuttered sigh.
I never again shall feel your warm heart flushed,
Panting with passion, naked unto mine,
Until the throbbing world around is hushed
To quiet worship at our scented shrine.
Nor will your glory seek my swarthy face,
To kindle and to change my jaded frame
Into a miracle of godlike grace,
Transfigured, bathed in your immortal flame.
The perfume of your body dulls my sense.
I want nor wine nor weed; your breath alone
Suffices. In this moment rare and tense
I worship at your breast. The flower is blown,
The saffron petals tempt my amorous mouth,
The yellow heart is radiant now with dew
Soft-scented, redolent of my loved South;
O flower of love! I give myself to you.
Uncovered on your couch of figured green,
Here let us linger indivisible.
The portals of your sanctuary unseen
Receive my offering, yielding unto me.
Oh, with our love the night is warm and deep!
The air is sweet, my flower, and sweet the flute
Whose music lulls our burning brain to sleep,
While we lie loving, passionate and mute.