_LADY WIFE_
AH yes, I know you well, a sojourner
At the hearth;
I know right well the marriage ring you wear,
And what it's worth.
The angels came to Abraham, and they stayed
In his house awhile;
So you to mine, I imagine; yes, happily
Condescend to be vile.
I see you all the time, you bird-blithe, lovely
Angel in disguise.
I see right well how I ought to be grateful,
Smitten with reverent surprise.
Listen, I have no use
For so rare a visit;
Mine is a common devil's
Requisite.
Rise up and go, I have no use for you
And your blithe, glad mien.
No angels here, for me no goddesses,
Nor any Queen.
Put ashes on your head, put sackcloth on
And learn to serve.
You have fed me with your sweetness, now I am sick,
As I deserve.
Queens, ladies, angels, women rare,
I have had enough.
Put sackcloth on, be crowned with powdery ash,
Be common stuff.
And serve now woman, serve, as a woman should,
Implicitly.
Since I must serve and struggle with the imminent
Mystery.
Serve then, I tell you, add your strength to mine
Take on this doom.
What are you by yourself, do you think, and what
The mere fruit of your womb?
What is the fruit of your womb then, you mother,
you queen,
When it falls to the ground?
Is it more than the apples of Sodom you scorn so,
the men
Who abound?
Bring forth the sons of your womb then, and put
them
Into the fire
Of Sodom that covers the earth; bring them forth
From the womb of your precious desire.
You woman most holy, you mother, you being
beyond
Question or diminution,
Add yourself up, and your seed, to the nought
Of your last solution.
_BOTH SIDES OF THE MEDAL_
AND because you love me
think you you do not hate me?
Ha, since you love me
to ecstasy
it follows you hate me to ecstasy.
Because when you hear me
go down the road outside the house
you must come to the window to watch me go,
do you think it is pure worship?
Because, when I sit in the room,
here, in my own house,
and you want to enlarge yourself with this friend of
mine,
such a friend as he is,
yet you cannot get beyond your awareness of me
you are held back by my being in the same world
with you,
do you think it is bliss alone?
sheer harmony?
No doubt if I were dead, you must
reach into death after me,
but would not your hate reach even more madly
than your love?
your impassioned, unfinished hate?
Since you have a passion for me,
as I for you,
does not that passion stand in your way like a
Balaam's ass?
and am I not Balaam's ass
golden-mouthed occasionally?
But mostly, do you not detest my bray?
Since you are confined in the orbit of me
do you not loathe the confinement?
Is not even the beauty and peace of an orbit
an intolerable prison to you,
as it is to everybody?
But we will learn to submit
each of us to the balanced, eternal orbit
wherein we circle on our fate
in strange conjunction.
What is chaos, my love?
It is not freedom.
A disarray of falling stars coming to nought.
_LOGGERHEADS_
PLEASE yourself how you have it.
Take my words, and fling
Them down on the counter roundly;
See if they ring.
Sift my looks and expressions,
And see what proportion there is
Of sand in my doubtful sugar
Of verities.
Have a real stock-taking
Of my manly breast;
Find out if I'm sound or bankrupt,
Or a poor thing at best.
For I am quite indifferent
To your dubious state,
As to whether you've found a fortune
In me, or a flea-bitten fate.
Make a good investigation
Of all that is there,
And then, if it's worth it, be grateful--
If not then despair.
If despair is our portion
Then let us despair.
Let us make for the weeping willow.
I don't care.
_DECEMBER NIGHT_
TAKE off your cloak and your hat
And your shoes, and draw up at my hearth
Where never woman sat.
I have made the fire up bright;
Let us leave the rest in the dark
And sit by firelight.
The wine is warm in the hearth;
The flickers come and go.
I will warm your feet with kisses
Until they glow.
_NEW YEAR'S EVE_
THERE are only two things now,
The great black night scooped out
And this fire-glow.
This fire-glow, the core,
And we the two ripe pips
That are held in store.
Listen, the darkness rings
As it circulates round our fire.
Take off your things.
Your shoulders, your bruised throat
Your breasts, your nakedness!
This fiery coat!
As the darkness flickers and dips,
As the firelight falls and leaps
From your feet to your lips!
_NEW YEAR'S NIGHT_
Now you are mine, to-night at last I say it;
You're a dove I have bought for sacrifice,
And to-night I slay it.
Here in my arms my naked sacrifice!
Death, do you hear, in my arms I am bringing
My offering, bought at great price.
She's a silvery dove worth more than all I've got.
Now I offer her up to the ancient, inexorable God,
Who knows me not.
Look, she's a wonderful dove, without blemish or
spot!
I sacrifice all in her, my last of the world,
Pride, strength, all the lot.
All, all on the altar! And death swooping down
Like a falcon. 'Tis God has taken the victim;
I have won my renown.
_VALENTINE'S NIGHT_
You shadow and flame,
You interchange,
You death in the game!
Now I gather you up,
Now I put you back
Like a poppy in its cup.
And so, you are a maid
Again, my darling, but new,
Unafraid.
My love, my blossom, a child
Almost! The flower in the bud
Again, undefiled.
And yet, a woman, knowing
All, good, evil, both
In one blossom blowing.
_BIRTH NIGHT_
THIS fireglow is a red womb
In the night, where you're folded up
On your doom.
And the ugly, brutal years
Are dissolving out of you,
And the stagnant tears.
I the great vein that leads
From the night to the source of you,
Which the sweet blood feeds.
New phase in the germ of you;
New sunny streams of blood
Washing you through.
You are born again of me.
I, Adam, from the veins of me
The Eve that is to be.
What has been long ago
Grows dimmer, we both forget,
We no longer know.
You are lovely, your face is soft
Like a flower in bud
On a mountain croft.
This is Noël for me.
To-night is a woman born
Of the man in me.
_RABBIT SNARED IN THE NIGHT_
WHY do you spurt and sprottle
like that, bunny?
Why should I want to throttle
you, bunny?
Yes, bunch yourself between
my knees and lie still.
Lie on me with a hot, plumb, live weight,
heavy as a stone, passive,
yet hot, waiting.
What are you waiting for?
What are you waiting for?
What is the hot, plumb weight of your desire on
me?
You have a hot, unthinkable desire of me, bunny.
What is that spark
glittering at me on the unutterable darkness
of your eye, bunny?
The finest splinter of a spark
that you throw off, straight on the tinder of my
nerves!
It sets up a strange fire,
a soft, most unwarrantable burning
a bale-fire mounting, mounting up in me.
'Tis not of me, bunny.
It was you engendered it,
with that fine, demoniacal spark
you jetted off your eye at me.
_I_ did not want it,
this furnace, this draught-maddened fire
which mounts up my arms
making them swell with turgid, ungovernable
strength.
'Twas not _I_ that wished it,
that my fingers should turn into these flames
avid and terrible
that they are at this moment.
It must have been _your_ inbreathing, gaping desire
that drew this red gush in me;
I must be reciprocating _your_ vacuous, hideous
passion.
It must be the want in you
that has drawn this terrible draught of white fire
up my veins as up a chimney.
It must be you who desire
this intermingling of the black and monstrous
fingers of Moloch
in the blood-jets of your throat.
Come, you shall have your desire,
since already I am implicated with you
in your strange lust.
_PARADISE RE-ENTERED_
THROUGH the strait gate of passion,
Between the bickering fire
Where flames of fierce love tremble
On the body of fierce desire:
To the intoxication,
The mind, fused down like a bead,
Flees in its agitation
The flames' stiff speed:
At last to calm incandescence,
Burned clean by remorseless hate,
Now, at the day's renascence
We approach the gate.
Now, from the darkened spaces
Of fear, and of frightened faces,
Death, in our awful embraces
Approached and passed by;
We near the flame-burnt porches
Where the brands of the angels, like torches
Whirl,--in these perilous marches
Pausing to sigh;
We look back on the withering roses,
The stars, in their sun-dimmed closes,
Where 'twas given us to repose us
Sure on our sanctity;
Beautiful, candid lovers,
Burnt out of our earthy covers,
We might have nestled like plovers
In the fields of eternity.
There, sure in sinless being,
All-seen, and then all-seeing,
In us life unto death agreeing,
We might have lain.
But we storm the angel-guarded
Gates of the long-discarded,
Garden, which God has hoarded
Against our pain.
The Lord of Hosts, and the Devil
Are left on Eternity's level
Field, and as victors we travel
To Eden home.
Back beyond good and evil
Return we. Eve dishevel
Your hair for the bliss-drenched revel
On our primal loam.
_SPRING MORNING_
AH, through the open door
Is there an almond tree
Aflame with blossom!
--Let us fight no more.
Among the pink and blue
Of the sky and the almond flowers
A sparrow flutters.
--We have come through,
It is really spring!--See,
When he thinks himself alone
How he bullies the flowers.
--Ah, you and me
How happy we'll be!--See him
He clouts the tufts of flowers
In his impudence.
--But, did you dream
It would be so bitter? Never mind
It is finished, the spring is here.
And we're going to be summer-happy
And summer-kind.
We have died, we have slain and been slain,
We are not our old selves any more.
I feel new and eager
To start again.
It is gorgeous to live and forget.
And to feel quite new.
See the bird in the flowers?--he's making
A rare to-do!
He thinks the whole blue sky
Is much less than the bit of blue egg
He's got in his nest--we'll be happy
You and I, I and you.
With nothing to fight any more--
In each other, at least.
See, how gorgeous the world is
Outside the door!