LITMIR.BIZ

      I. FATHER AND CHILD

      SHE hears me strike the board and say

      That she is under ban

      Of all good men and women,

      Being mentioned with a man

      That has the worst of all bad names;

      And thereupon replies

      That his hair is beautiful,

      Cold as the March wind his eyes.

      II. BEFORE THE WORLD WAS MADE

      IF I make the lashes dark

      And the eyes more bright

      And the lips more scarlet,

      Or ask if all be right

      From mirror after mirror,

      No vanity’s displayed:

      I’m looking for the face I had

      Before the world was made.

      What if I look upon a man

      As though on my beloved,

      And my blood be cold the while

      And my heart unmoved?

      Why should he think me cruel

      Or that he is betrayed?

      I’d have him love the thing that was

      Before the world was made.

      III. A FIRST CONFESSION

      I ADMIT the briar

      Entangled in my hair

      Did not injure me;

      My blenching and trembling,

      Nothing but dissembling,

      Nothing but coquetry.

      I long for truth, and yet

      I cannot stay from that

      My better self disowns,

      For a man’s attention

      Brings such satisfaction

      To the craving in my bones.

      Brightness that I pull back

      From the Zodiac,

      Why those questioning eyes

      That are fixed upon me?

      What can they do but shun me

      If empty night replies?

      IV. HER TRIUMPH

      I DID the dragon’s will until you came

      Because I had fancied love a casual

      Improvisation, or a settled game

      That followed if I let the kerchief fall:

      Those deeds were best that gave the minute wings

      And heavenly music if they gave it wit;

      And then you stood among the dragon-rings.

      I mocked, being crazy, but you mastered it

      And broke the chain and set my ankles free,

      Saint George or else a pagan Perseus;

      And now we stare astonished at the sea,

      And a miraculous strange bird shrieks at us.

      V. CONSOLATION

      O BUT there is wisdom

      In what the sages said;

      But stretch that body for a while

      And lay down that head

      Till I have told the sages

      Where man is comforted.

      How could passion run so deep

      Had I never thought

      That the crime of being born

      Blackens all our lot?

      But where the crime’s committed

      The crime can be forgot.

      VI. CHOSEN

      THE lot of love is chosen. I learnt that much

      Struggling for an image on the track

      Of the whirling Zodiac.

      Scarce did he my body touch,

      Scarce sank he from the west

      Or found a subterranean rest

      On the maternal midnight of my breast

      Before I had marked him on his northern way,

      And seemed to stand although in bed I lay.

      I struggled with the horror of daybreak,

      I chose it for my lot! If questioned on

      My utmost pleasure with a man

      By some new-married bride, I take

      That stillness for a theme

      Where his heart my heart did seem

      And both adrift on the miraculous stream

      Where – wrote a learned astrologer —

      The Zodiac is changed into a sphere.

      VII. PARTING

      i {He.} Dear, I must be gone

      While night Shuts the eyes

      Of the household spies;

      That song announces dawn.

      i {She.} No, night’s bird and love’s

      Bids all true lovers rest,

      While his loud song reproves

      The murderous stealth of day.

      i {He.} Daylight already flies

      From mountain crest to crest

      i {She.} That light is from the moon.

      i {He.} That bird…

      i {She.} Let him sing on,

      I offer to love’s play

      My dark declivities.

      VIII. HER VISION IN THE WOOD

      DRY timber under that rich foliage,

      At wine-dark midnight in the sacred wood,

      Too old for a man’s love I stood in rage

      Imagining men. Imagining that I could

      A greater with a lesser pang assuage

      Or but to find if withered vein ran blood,

      I tore my body that its wine might cover

      Whatever could recall the lip of lover.

      And after that I held my fingers up,

      Stared at the wine-dark nail, or dark that ran

      Down every withered finger from the top;

      But the dark changed to red, and torches shone,

      And deafening music shook the leaves; a troop

      Shouldered a litter with a wounded man,

      Or smote upon the string and to the sound

      Sang of the beast that gave the fatal wound.

      All stately women moving to a song

      With

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