Donald (Grady) Davidson

The Tiger-Woman came to me When dusk was close and men were dull. She beckoned from the jungle-path; I followed, dreaming, fanciful. The Tiger-Woman’s face is pale, But oh, her speaking eyes are dark. No beast can move so lithe as she Beside the matted river’s mark. The jungle is a fearsome place For men who hunt, and men who slay, But I was not afraid to go Where Tiger-Woman led the way. The Tiger-Woman’s lips are thin; Her teeth are like the Tiger’s teeth. Yet her soft hands are woman’s hands, And oh, the blood beats warm beneath. She led me to a little glade,— The creepers with the moon inwove,— And two great striped beasts leaped up And fawned upon her breast in love. The Tiger-Woman’s voice was sweet; I hearkened and was not afraid. She stroked the Tigers’ fearful jaws; Upon their heads my hands I laid. And all the jungle things drew near, And all the leaves a music made Like spirits chanting in a choir Along the bamboo colonnade. Too sweet for human harps to sound, It touched my blood, it fired my heart The Tiger-Woman sang, and I Sang too, and understood her art. She kissed the Tiger’s snarling mouth. She kissed—I marveled that she could— But now her lips were warm on mine; I cared not they were dabbed with blood. What if the traveller shuns my hut, What if the world forgets to be, What if I have the Tiger’s heart,— The Tiger-Woman loveth me!

Teach me, old World, your passion of slow change, Your calm of stars, watching the turn of earth, Patient of man, and never thinking strange The mad red crash of each new system’s birth. Teach me, for I would know your beauty’s way That waits and changes with each changing sun, No dawn so fair but promises a day Of other perfectness than men have won. Teach me, old World, not as vain men have taught, —Unpatient song, nor words of hollow brass, Nor men’s dismay whose powerfullest thought Is woe that they and worlds alike must pass. Nothing I learn by any mortal rule; Teach me, old World, I would not be man’s fool.

Of what sins have you made confession here, Ardent Cecile? Not passion’s intimacy, Or tangles of desire that mutineer A bold way through your maiden ecstasy. Those are not blamed...the penance not severe! Pray rather, with cool-lidded conscious eyes For warm juvescence of those ichored limbs, For laughter checked by no repentant cries, For lips unstained by pattering of hymns. Men’s glances have embraced you. They are wise. They have seen you, cumbent by the ruddy fire, Lending your curves to cushioned wantonness, Or leaping to the stroke of an earthy lyre Twanged in the joy of throbbing noon’s excess And cried no pause for love. You, they require. Of what sins have you made confession here, Ardent Cecile? The wood receives your knees; The organ stirs your prayer. Now you revere The God that made you beautiful among these, The gnarled and ugly. Your book receives no tear.

“Press out an opiate juice From berries culled in prick of June-time heat; Pound nettles in a cruse Of crimson sard till mixing is complete; And strain the brew through bags of sarcenet, Mumbling the runes that crazed Sir Dagonet.” So spoke the slobbering witch, Wagging her shaky head incessantly; Then, with an agile twitch Stove oddly crackling through the briery. I caught the swish of her broomstick up to the moon, And her tattered skirt afloat like a black balloon. Old Witch, whither art gone? Hopped off to the well like Chick-o’-my-Craney-Crow? Here’s work for thy dudgeon, A brew and a bake for a devilish calico! What’s but a kettle ready for mad ferment, Black mouth a-grin at me, the innocent! I pressed and pounded duly, And sat to watch the slop at bubble slow; Fed coals with knots unruly Of thornbush boles till pot-legs stood aglow. And thrice the pot gave forth a piggish grunt, And thrice a bellowing as of hounds on hunt. A great red swine sprang out, With bristling gleams as bright as Freyr’s boar; Then, at his grubbing snout, Two black dogs leaped, two white-fanged lusts for gore. They three made hideous noise through brush and dew— Trembling I stooped and strained the mulling brew. And there was born a girl Within a sudden mist wizardry, And came some faint pipes’ thirl, While she danced, with lips turned sly, and beckoned me, And we danced mad till night’s low-burning wick Snuffed out, hearing like us the Old Hag’s stick.

“The chambers of the sun, that now From ancient melody have ceased.” The doorways of the Sun were closed; Its muted bells gave forth no sound. But while the windy prophets dozed A child a little crevice found. He pulled with one small straining hand; The massy door moved willingly. And he has wakened all the band Of singers—they rise eagerly. Let now again the hinges move In sweetly clanging melody; Unseat the dark blind from the groove; Unleash the struggling harmony. The golden doors are opening To ancient sounds of loveliness; The Sons of Light are issuing, Winged with their antique mightiness. Who can sing the House of the Sun? Who shall frame its dreadful art? His childhood never must be done! And he must have a wondering heart! Burn all the manuscripts of shame! Break every lute of brazen string! Utter, O living tongues, the flame! Up, Dust, into the Sun, and sing!

Into a crock of gold he’d set some weeds, Behold swart devils in the sunniest weather; He would lump the saint and the courtesan together, Most miserably jangling all the creeds. The prurient multitude heard he was mad, Yet nosed his books for some pornography. The censors doubted his virginity, And secretly conned the works that they forbade. Reporters found this dangerous oddity In rusty pantaloons, mowing the green, And wondered how so dull a wretch could have seen A naked Venus disturbing an alien sea. He watched their backs receding down the street, Raked up the grass, and suddenly had a vision Of how Venus, bathing, saw with amused derision Behind the bushes peeping satyrs’ feet.

Thou twist of gold, woven so curiously, Be filled with warmth and urgent tenderness, And cool not on her throat’s white nakedness, Like metal death, but burn insistently, Reminding her of me! To save her from the serpent’s little eye I set a stone of blue chalcedony Within a cunning loop—so it shall be Aware and mindful when her lashes lie Untaught of danger nigh. To keep her from the dragon’s hungry tooth In seven laps the quorls were subtly twined; From seven rivers grains of gold were mined, Hammered by black elves’ mauls, and tempered sooth In hissing brews uncouth. So lie within my satchel, Amulet, With many another dull and boughten thing, Till I am done with all my wandering And fix thee pendant on the carcanet Around her white neck set. For I have graven some small incantation In feathery lines upon this rounded wire— King Solomon made such for his desire, And Sheba’s throat was warm for subjugation Hearing the King’s translation.