XXIX
THE CONFESSION
I
I am initiate,—long disciplinedIn delicate austerities of art:The clear compulsions of the sovran mindConstrain the dreamy panics of my heart.Plato and Dante, Petrarch, Lancelot,Revealed me very Love, flame-clad, august.Also I strove to be as we are not,Loyal, and honourable, and even just.My webs of life in reveries were dyedAs veils in vats of purple: so there stoleSerene and sumptuous and mysterious prideThrough the imperial vesture of my soul.—And lo! like any servile fool I craveThe dark strange rapture of the stricken slave.
XXX
THE CONFESSION
II
I have a banner and a great duke's way,I have an High Adventure of my own.Yet would I rather squire a knightlier,—Nay!Be the least harper by his red-hung throne.I am not satisfied with any loveTill I can say, "O stronger far than I!"Is it a shame to hide the aching of,A sacred mystery to justify?Through all our spiritual discontentsThrills the strange leaven of renunciation.—Ah! god unknown behind the SacramentsUnfailing of the earthly expiation,Lift up this amethyst-encumbered Vine,Crush from her pain some ransom-cup of Wine.
XXXI
COMRADES
Yet for the honourable felicityOf comradeship I can be chivalrous,And through love's transmutations fierilyConstant as the gemmed paladin SiriusTo that fair pact. We go, gay challengers,Beneath dark rampires of forbidden thought,Thread life's dim gardens masked like revellersWhere dreams of roses red are dearly bought.We shall ride haughtily as bright Crusaders,As hooded palmers fare with humbled hearts,And we shall find, adoring blithe invaders,The City of Seven Towers, of Seven Arts.—Then the Last Quest, (lead you the dreadful way!)Among the unimagined Nebulae!
XXXII
THE SUM OF THINGS
TO ANOTHER WOMAN
Well, I am tired, who fared to divers ends,And you are not, who kept the beaten path;But mystic Vintagers have been my friends,Even Love and Death and Sin and Pride and Wrath.Wounded am I, you are immaculate;But great Adventurers were my starry guides:From God's Pavilion to the Flaming GateHave I not ridden as an immortal rides?And your dry soul crumbles by dim degreesTo final dust quite happily, it appears,While all the sweetness of her nectariesCan only stand within my heart like tears.O throbbing wounds, rich tears, and splendour spent,—Ye are all my spoil, and I am well content.
XXXIII
REACTION
Give me a chamber paved with emeraldAnd hung with arras green as evening skies,Broidered with halcyons, moons, and heavily thralledWhite lilies, cold rare comfort for the eyes.Of triumph built was radiant yesterday:Like an imperial eagle to the sunMy soul bare up her dreams the glorious wayThrough flagrant ordeals august, and wonTo burning eyries, till beneath her wingRankled the shaft. Her Archer was abroad;And hooded with strange darkness, shudderingDown pain's dull spiral, sank she on the sod.Close round, green dusk of dews! No more we dareThe blue inviolate castles of the air.
XXXIV
THE IDEALIST
For such an one let lovers cry, Alas!Since passion's leaguer shall break through in vainTo that cold centre of bright adamas.—Storm through her being, rapturous spears of pain!Ye shall not wound that queen of gracious guile,The soul that with immortal trance keeps troth:For Helen is in Egypt all the while,Learning great magic from the Wife of Thoth.Throned white and high on red-rose porphyry,And coifed with golden wings, she lifts her eyesO'er Nile's green lavers where most sacredlyThe Pattern of the myriad Lotos lies,Unto those clear horizons jasper-paleHer heavenly Brethren ride in silver mail.
XXXV
WOMAN AND VISION
Vainly the Vision of Life entreats those eyesWhere stars of glamour mock at revelations.But singular fiery moments do surpriseWith dreadful or delicious divinationsThe whorls of our blue Labyrinth: the sweetBlind sense of touch tells like an undersongMarvellous matters. What though snared feet,And wounded hands, and ravelled coils of wrong,Plead that the solemn Vision might make wholeOur imperfection?—Fevered second-sight,Audacious wisdom of the blinded soul,Dim delicate auroras of delightThat thrill the Dark from startled finger-tips,Are ye less precious an Apocalypse?
XXXVI
ART AND WOMEN
The Triumph of Art compels few womenkind;And these are yoked like slaves to Eros' car,—No victors they! Yet ours the Dream behind,Who are nearer to the gods than poets are.For with the silver moons we wax and wane,And with the roses love most woundingly,And, wrought from flower to fruit with dim rich pain,The Orchard of the Pomegranates are we.For with Demeter still we seek the Spring,With Dionysos tread the sacred Vine,Our broken bodies still imaginingThe mournful Mystery of the Bread and Wine.—And Art, that fierce confessor of the flowers,Desires the secret spice of those veiled hours.
XXXVII
DESTINY
The great religions of the Rose and GrapeHave bound us in to their sad Paradise:We dream in crucial symbols, nor escapeThe cypress-garden where the slain god lies.Daughters of lamentation round the CrossWhere Beauty suffers garlanded with thorn,Remembrancers through all the Night of Loss,We bear the spikenard of the Easter Morn.The yearning Springs, the brooding Autumns seetheLike philtres in our veins. O dark Election,Are then the sacrificial doors we wreatheWith lilies fiery gates of Resurrexion?And does the passion of our spices feedLove's bright Arabian miracle indeed?
XXXVIII
CONFLICT
Why should a woman find her dream of loveIrised by the strange ecstasy of Art?Is not Eros a terrible lord enoughThat she must bear both Hunters of the heart,The Golden Archer and the Scarlet too?Then bitter anomalies annul her choirOf puissant and subtle instincts, rended throughBy gorgeous dualisms of vain-desire.For Love outrages Art's clear disciplines,And Art lures Love to guilt of cryptic treason:The spirit of imagination pines,Captive in webs of exquisite unreason.Alas for this translated soul of hers,The rose's, that must be the garlander's!
XXXIX
PREDECESSORS
Faëry of Sheba, idol moulded inOnyx milk-white, moon-mailed and casqued with gems;Ye gold-swathed queens of Egypt, Isis' kin,With bright god-hawks and snakes for diadems;Serene masque-music of Greek girls that bearThe sacred Veil to that Athenian feast;Hypatia, casting from thine ivory chairThe gods' last challenge to the godless priest;Fantastic fine Provençals wistfullyHearkening Love, the mournful lute player;Diamond ladies of that ItalyWhen Art and Wisdom Passion's angels were—Ye give this grail (touch with no mad misprision!)Of Beauty's rose-red miracled tradition.
XL
TRANSITION
But these recoil in riddles and reserves.—The dream's untuned. Ah! vanished chords thereof!Ah! keen divisions of the jangled nervesThat strung so long the gracious lutes of love!—Hurry to sell old magian Lamps for new,Though beauty's moonlike domes dissolve and pass:If all things change, ye would be changing too,Crazed hearts that know not your desire, alas!Still, through these wintry treasons that forswearThe lovely bitter bondage of our god,Rare perennations of the soul prepare—And Music yet shall seal the periodWith some new star,—with sad pure hands unveilFor ransomed eyes again the gilded Grail.
XLI
THE VIRTUE OF PRIDE
My troubled bosom shall be cinct with pride,Girdled with red asterias. Is it sinIf I have cast lover and friend aside,Scorning them as myself who cannot winThe strengths of beauty, the heavenly altitudes?—O sad and sacred Spirit of Disdain,What penances upon thine ivory roodsWithin the burning Castles of thy pain!—Thy mystic will no motion ever knewOutwith the splendid danger of extremes;Thy sorrowful refusals pass thee throughThe great concentrics of star-builded dreams,Unto the crypt of absolute ecstasy,To God or Nothing—where thine heart would be.
XLII
SPELL-BOUND
I have been frozen. Once I was not cold.But I have strayed within some glitteringNight Of Lapland miracle, have leagued of oldWith glaives and banners of wild Polar light.Yet if I could dissolve in tears this coreOf ice, my heart, undo these crystal spells,We should be sisters of incense evermoreLike the crowned Lover of the Canticles.Through the great honeycomb of my soul should steepThe secrets of the lilies, and her fireBe ambergris, her agate flagons keepThe sorcelled hydromel which brings DesireTo that mysterious Dark where still prevailsThe dream of roses and of nightingales.
XLIII
THE NIGHT OBSCURE OF THE SOUL
When the Soul travails in her Night Obscure,The nadir of her desperate defeat,What heavenly dream shall help her to endure,What flaming Wisdom be her Paraclete?No curious Metaphysic can withholdThe heart from that mandragora she craves:—Unreasonable, old as Earth is old,The blind ecstatic miracle that saves.Far off the pagan trumpeters of PrideCall to the blood.—Love moans.—Some fiery fashionOf rapture like the anguish of the brideLeaps from the dark perfection of the Passion,Crying: "O beautiful God, still torture me,For if thou slay me, I will trust in Thee."
XLIV
THE CONQUEST OF IMMORTALITY
Ah! not in earthy dull durations IMine heirdom of Eternity implore.Give one star-drunken moment ere I die,Then doom me dreadless to the implacable Door.That mystical Assumption shall disownTime's haughtiest lieges. Grey mortalityWill disenchant the jewel-breded throneOf Cassiopeia when more burninglyMy deed exults with angels. I will borrowFrom continuity no larva-lease:Through sworded crises and great compts of sorrowI seek the splendour that shall never ceaseThough Death coin from my soul through endless yearsDim drachmas of his infinite arrears.
XLV
WOMEN OF TANAGRA
Have these forgotten they are toys of DeathThat in his sad aphelions of desireThey still regret the joy that perisheth,And Spring's great reveries that exceed and tire,—Faintly accusing Love's unmercied yokesWith almost wanton grace, the craft and artOf precious frailty that with subtle strokesOf sweetness finds the core of Passion's heart?They carry fans and mirrors, or make fastThe mournful flute-like cadence of a veil.Slight fans that winnowed souls, mirrors that glassedThe burning brooding wings which never fail!Still in such lovely vanities to-dayThe gods their secret wisdom hide away.
XLVI
THE INVENTORY
TO HER FRIEND
I love all sumptuous things and delicate,Ethereal matters richly paradisedIn Art's proud certitudes. I love the greatGreek vases, carven ivory, subtilisedArras of roses, Magians dyed on glass,Graven chalcedony and sardonyx,Nocturnes that through the nerves like fever pass,Arthurian kings, Love on the crucifix,All sweet mysterious verse, the ByzantineGold chambers of Crivelli, marble that flowersIn shy adoring angels, patterned vineAnd lotos, and emblazoned Books of Hours,—And you, whose smiling eyes to ironiesReduce both me and mine idolatries.
XLVII
COMFORT
I
I sang the Dolorous Stroke of Disillusion,Yet never have I broken faith with Joy:Flame-broidered trance and starless cold confusionOf slain and flying dreams shall not destroyThe radiant oath to that bright SuzerainWhose lightning-lovely succour ambushed liesEven in the most impossible strait of pain.Mystical paradox, divine surpriseOf rapture! By intensities aloneTheir spirits enter in to exultationFor whom the burning winds of their sad zoneBear down the Dove of the Imagination,Who suffer superbly,in scarlet violetted,As the Sacred Kings of the Lilliemourned their dead.*
* See Favine's "Book of Chivalry."
XLVIII
COMFORT
II
And that is marvellous comfort;—and yet poorTo what mere woman-mystery can give,The strange simplicity that will endureThe pangs of death, most resolute to live.This God of riddles that shaped a thing so frailFor his worst torment hid mysterious powersWithin her breast who can like lilies prevailThrough rains of doom that conquer brassy towers.Her heart lies broken; when some trivial chordOf sweetness chimes reveille through the sense,—A rose, a song, a smile, a courtly word.She wakes, and sighs, and softly passes thenceBack to the masquers, though her soul's veiled PyxEnclose the solemn fruits of the Crucifix.
XLIX
THE CHANGE
I spun my soul about with soft cocoonsOf pleasure golden-pale. For me, for meWere precious things put forth by crescent moons,Of pearl and milky jade and ivory.Grave players on ethereal harpsichords,My senses wrought a music exquisiteAs patterned roses, all my life's accordsWere richer, ghostlier than peacocks white.So in my paradise reserved and fairI grew as dreamlike as the Elysian dead;Until a passing Wizard smote me there,And suddenly my soul inheritedSome gorgeous terrible dukedom of desireLike those in bright Andromeda's realms of fire.
L
AT THE END
The fiery permutations of the soulAre infinite, but how to be revealed?On what impassive matter must the wholeInveterate coil of good and ill be sealed!How much too simple all the tale of deedsTo pattern out these labyrinthine things,These knots of bright unreason, ghostly bredesVeiled weavers weave, moving with silver wingsWithin the duskling sense. Most diverse visionsTheir visionaries darkly reconcileAt one sad end. Fate's delicate derisionsThrough the same hell of penance may beguileTwo women, who meet with alien eyes downcast;Yet one stand first with Love, and one the last.
LI
THE SOUL OF AGE
I have seen delicate aged women wroughtMost tenderly by Time, their passionate pastBy the wise vigils of forgiving thoughtAmerced of pain, mere beauty at the last.So may my soul be chaste, serene, enrichedLike an Etruscan mirror one has foundIn kind oblivions, graciously bewitchedWith precious patinas, a various roundOf milky opal, or turkis, or emerald,Glistered with rubies faint and smoky pearls,Where swirls of incised pattern have enthralledFigures of sweet archaic gods and girls,And I shall say: "Thou art a curious toy,O soul that mirrored Love and Wrath and Joy!"
LI I
HYPNEROTOMACHIA
Ah! Pride and Wrath and Mirth and Pain and Pity,Some amethystine day at last will be,When your bright guard and Phantasy's hill-cityShall be like wonders on a tapestry;And we shall touch between tired orisonsThe symbolism of those freaked crowns and wings,—Then gaze across the falling Avalons,The resignations of autumnal things,And see among the pointed cypressesThe one god left, the smiling perverse god,The Love that will not leave the loverless,Contending with the Stranger of the Rod,—Until these twain become as one, and allThe Soul and Sense be starrily vesperal.
LIII
THE REVOLT
Not so, my Soul? Rather for thee the fateOf those hieratic Carthaginian queensWho needs must vanish through the gods' own gate,Even holy Flame, with music and great threnesIdolatrous, as on soft gorgeous wings,If Time's least kiss had subtly disallowedTheir beauty's sacred unisons?—Fair thingsDesire their revel-raiment be their shroud.Yet, fierce insurgent, cease vain wars to wage!Art thou so pure as to decline, forsooth,These penitential usages of ageThat expiate proud cruelties of youth,And bring thee to the last and perfect art,To love the lovely with a selfless heart?
LIV
AFTER MANY YEARS
By mute communions and by salt sad kisses,By Pity's webs that still with fiery strandsWove us together, by the unplumbed abyssesWhere we have gazed and never loosened hands,By holy water we have given each otherAt Beauty's blessed doors, and by the heartsOf sweet Delight and Agony her brother,By bright new marriages in all great arts,By the rare wisdom like miraculous amberWon by the desolate grey sound of tears,By wedding-music of the flute and tambourPrevailing o'er Time's cruel plot of years,By all the proud prayers granted and denied us,Fate has no sword at all that can divide us.
LV
TREASURE
Not mine the silver ride of the redeemer,Not mine the secret vision of the saint,Not mine the martyrdoms of Truth's dark dreamerNor bitter beatitudes of Art. O quaintUndoing of youth's horoscope! No splendoursNor laurels, nor wisdom in a myrrhine bowl!Here is the treasure that the past surrenders,A spoil of roses coffered in the soul,—Much like another woman's! Rare perfumesAnd cleaving thorns, faded pathetic storeOf kisses and sighs, would those heroic doomsI craved of old have yet enriched me more?I have not dwelt in Galilee nor TyreNor Athens. But I have my heart's desire.
LVI
THE SOUL TO THE BODY
I know thou hast a secret of thine ownWhich I desire. But once I broke with theeAnd walked among the asphodel alone:Therefore thou wilt reserve this reverie,Like sumptuous flame closed up in alabaster.They half betray, these curious magian hands:Faint music of thy breast has throbbed the faster,If I have touched it with my charming-wands.And yet,—the wonder any woman knowsThou dost deny the proud Soul that has fedAmong the lilies of the White Eros.—Ere I go down among the witless DeadGive, give the secret, for my bliss or rue,Lest lack of that should craze my wisdom through.
LVII
THE IRONIST
Among high gods the absolute ironistIs Love. Therefore, when some cleft lightning mocksThine arrogant rapture, sad idealist,Admire the wild play of his paradox.Great satires of reversal have astoundedHis bigots: proud fine dreamers confidentBefore an idol in their image are houndedThrough comedies of disillusionment.Not heavenly Plato, not the Florentine,Not any mage of EpipsychidionCan the true nature of the god divine.Heresiarchs like Heine and like Donne,Bitter and sweet, and hot and cold, know bestThe incomparable anguish of his jest.
LVIII
IN VAIN
I said: "Confession's bitter cauteryShall fierily search my soul, destroy her ill."Natheless, the wounded wasting maladyIs her unexorcised sad sovran still.Oh! that alembic fever of interwedDesire and dream and sense, rapture and rue!As soon as my sincerest words are saidAnd heard they seem apostate and untrue.For only speech more richly dubiousThan shoaling water, or a ringdove's breast,Than lighted incense more miraculousWith fumes of strange remembrance, could attestThe morbid beauty of that wasting illWhereof I am the cureless lover still.
LIX
RESERVATIONS
Though cold clear cruelties like diamondBurthen this silken text of dim surmise,Surely thou knowest I am pity's bondIf one but look at me with stricken eyes.If like a herald I have blazoned Pride,I am Humility's own renegade.For fruits of good and evil have I sighed?If Love forbid them, Love shall be obeyed.Though the wroth soul may excommunicateHer body, yet I see the flagrant strifeOf earthy and heavenly elements createColour, change, music. For the Tree of LifeBurns with this precious mystery of sorrowsThat Love the Phoenix find immortal morrows.
LX
THE NEW LOVE
Ah! what if thy last canticle be said,Bright Archer of illusion adored of old,Thou dream-fast Love in raiment burning-red,Wreathed with white doves, quivered with burning gold?Pass with thy Triumph of Lovers, Aucassin,Tristram, and Pharamond, and Lancelot,Dante, and Rudel, all thy haughty kin,Princes in that high heaven, as we are not.—With some gilt couchant sphinx both casqued and crowned,All mailed in amethyst the new god comes,Whose brooding beautiful eyes at last have foundOur uncanonical dark martyrdoms,Who from the sombre catacombs of theseBrings his great miracles and mysteries.
LXI
THE WAYS OF LOVE
Hail the implacable IconoclastWhose images of ivory and goldMake proud the dust that his enthusiastIn her dark trance may very God behold.From the clear music of his delicatePeripheries and porches of delightHe draws her down through cruel gate on gate,Through immemorial, blind, implacable riteThat strips her of her dream-branched veils of youth,And naked, agonised like trodden grapes,Drags her before the imperishable Truth,The flaming Ecstacy wherefrom he shapesReal myth and doctrine. Therefore I lift upMy heart like some great jubilant scarlet Cup.
THE EPILOGUE OF THE DREAMING WOMEN
Take back this armour. Give us broideries.Against the Five sad Wounds inveterateIn our dim sense, can that defend, or these?In veils mysterious and delicateClothe us again, in beautiful broideries.
Take back this justice. Give us thuribles.While ye do loudly in the battle-dust,We feed the gods with spice and canticles.To our strange hearts, as theirs, just and unjustAre idle words. Give graven thuribles.
Keep orb and sceptre. Give us up your soulsThat our long fingers wake them verilyLike dulcimers and citherns and violes;Or at the burning disk of ecstasyImpose rare sigils on your gem-like souls.
Give mercies, cruelties, and exultations,Give the long trances of the breaking heart;And we shall bring you great imaginationsTo urge you through the agony of Art.Give cloud and flame, give trances, exultations.