52 Beauty poems

—for Tamar Craig I knew the hard winter of sapphires set within gold claws, amber and pipestone strung on gut, fringed pouches stuffed with hash. Separate, separate, I urged her that summer of Woodstock, when I lied to get the car and draped my love beads around the neck of someone else’s sister. In a hayloft in Ohio my friend lifted three bales to show me a litter of week-old kittens, each pair of eyes infected with a slimy mucus. Their pupils swam in opaque opal membranes and they would have gone blind if she had not pulled an eyedropper of antibiotics from her jacket, doing what the mother cat could not do, what the owners would not trouble themselves to do, doing what a sister or friend might do if she took the time to attend the wayward, opalescent unhappiness in this world.

Whether it was a particular beauty Stirred the tearfall from the eyelid’s rim, Rinsing the world once more with self, Was it not there the general peered, Thousand-eyed, down from the peak In the last of all imaginary sunsets? The light divided in half, the half Divided again in half, the way Zeno’s paradox makes nothing move Because an infinity of points between Target and arrow, though never seen, Exists. And there is snow in a capsule, A solid floor of individual Flakes that, shaken, settle in a field— Parachutists growing where the grass, One moment before, was only natural. I am speaking now of the diminishment Or enhancement of enchanted objects, Of how they turn into nothingness Or burnish the imagination: A fire at the bottom of the sea, For instance, or a mind in space Thinking its way into science fiction, Or, inside the skull, a little world Clinging, about to be thrown away— Miraculous lint under a bell.

I 1 Pearl, the precious prize of a king, Chastely set in cherished gold, In all the East none equalling, No peer to her could I behold. So round, so rare, a radiant thing, So smooth she was, so small of mold, Wherever I judged gems glimmering I set her apart, her price untold. Alas, I lost her in earth’s green fold; Through grass to the ground, I searched in vain. I languish alone; my heart grows cold For my precious pearl without a stain. 2 Since in that spot it slipped from me, I lingered, longing for that delight That from my sins once set me free And my happiness raised to the highest height. Her going wounds me grievously; It burns my breast both day and night. Yet I never imagined a melody So sweet as she, so brief, and slight. But memory flowed through my mind’s sight: I thought how her color in clods had lain O dust that dims what once was bright, My precious pearl without a stain. 3 Rare spices on that spot must spread: Such riches there to rot have run, Blooms of yellow and blue and red, Their sheen a shimmer against the sun, Flower and fruit nor faded nor dead, Where the pearl dropped down in mouldering dun; Each grass from a lifeless grain is bred, Else to harvest no wheat were won: Always from good is good begun. So seemly a seed could not die in vain, That sprig nor spice there would be none Of that precious pearl without a stain. 4 To the spot which I in speech portray, I entered in that arbor green, In August on a holy day, When the corn is cut with sickles keen. On the little rise where my pearl rolled away, The fairest flowers formed a screen: Gillyflower, ginger, gromwell spray, With peonies powdered in between. If they were seemly to be seen, Far sweeter the scents from that domain, More worthy her dwelling, well I ween, My precious pearl without a stain. 5 I mourned, hands clenched, before that mound, For the piercing cold of grief had caught Me in the doleful dread and bound My heart, though reason solace sought. I longed for my pearl, locked in the ground, While fierce contentions in me fought. In Christ, though comfort could be found, My wretched will was still distraught. I fell upon that flowery plot. Such odors eddied in my brain, To sudden slumber I was brought By that precious pearl without a stain.

If one could have that little head of hers Painted upon a background of pale gold, Such as the Tuscan’s early art prefers! No shade encroaching on the matchless mould Of those two lips, which should be opening soft In the pure profile; not as when she laughs, For that spoils all: but rather as if aloft Yon hyacinth, she loves so, leaned its staff’s Burthen of honey-coloured buds to kiss And capture ’twixt the lips apart for this. Then her lithe neck, three fingers might surround, How it should waver on the pale gold ground, Up to the fruit-shaped, perfect chin it lifts! I know, Correggio loves to mass, in rifts Of heaven, his angel faces, orb on orb Breaking its outline, burning shades absorb: But these are only massed there, I should think, Waiting to see some wonder momently Grow out, stand full, fade slow against the sky (That’s the pale ground you’d see this sweet face by), All heaven, meanwhile, condensed into one eye Which fears to lose the wonder, should it wink.

I never knew the earth had so much gold— The fields run over with it, and this hill Hoary and old, Is young with buoyant blooms that flame and thrill. Such golden fires, such yellow—lo, how good This spendthrift world, and what a lavish God! This fringe of wood, Blazing with buttercup and goldenrod. You too, beloved, are changed. Again I see Your face grow mystical, as on that night You turned to me, And all the trembling world—and you—were white. Aye, you are touched; your singing lips grow dumb; The fields absorb you, color you entire . . . And you become A goddess standing in a world of fire!

Though beauty be the mark of praise, And yours of whom I sing be such As not the world can praise too much, Yet ’tis your virtue now I raise. A virtue, like allay, so gone Throughout your form, as, though that move And draw and conquer all men’s love, This sùbjects you to love of one. Wherein you triumph yet; because ’Tis of yourself, and that you use The noblest freedom, not to choose Against or faith or honor’s laws. But who should less expect from you, In whom alone Love lives again? By whom he is restored to men, And kept, and bred, and brought up true. His falling temples you have reared, The withered garlands ta’en away; His altars kept from the decay That envy wished, and nature feared; And on them burn so chaste a flame, With so much loyalties’ expense, As Love, t’ acquit such excellence, Is gone himself into your name. And you are he; the deity To whom all lovers are designed That would their better objects find; Among which faithful troop am I. Who, as an offspring at your shrine, Have sung this hymn, and here entreat One spark of your diviner heat To light upon a love of mine. Which, if it kindle not, but scant Appear, and that to shortest view, Yet give me leave t’ adore in you What I in her am grieved to want.

No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace As I have seen in one autumnal face. Young beauties force our love, and that's a rape, This doth but counsel, yet you cannot scape. If 'twere a shame to love, here 'twere no shame; Affection here takes reverence's name. Were her first years the golden age? That's true, But now she's gold oft tried and ever new. That was her torrid and inflaming time, This is her tolerable tropic clime. Fair eyes, who asks more heat than comes from hence, He in a fever wishes pestilence. Call not these wrinkles, graves; if graves they were, They were Love's graves, for else he is no where. Yet lies not Love dead here, but here doth sit Vow'd to this trench, like an anachorit; And here till hers, which must be his death, come, He doth not dig a grave, but build a tomb. Here dwells he; though he sojourn ev'rywhere In progress, yet his standing house is here: Here where still evening is, not noon nor night, Where no voluptuousness, yet all delight. In all her words, unto all hearers fit, You may at revels, you at council, sit. This is Love's timber, youth his underwood; There he, as wine in June, enrages blood, Which then comes seasonabliest when our taste And appetite to other things is past. Xerxes' strange Lydian love, the platan tree, Was lov'd for age, none being so large as she, Or else because, being young, nature did bless Her youth with age's glory, barrenness. If we love things long sought, age is a thing Which we are fifty years in compassing; If transitory things, which soon decay, Age must be loveliest at the latest day. But name not winter faces, whose skin's slack, Lank as an unthrift's purse, but a soul's sack; Whose eyes seek light within, for all here's shade; Whose mouths are holes, rather worn out than made; Whose every tooth to a several place is gone, To vex their souls at resurrection: Name not these living death's-heads unto me, For these, not ancient, but antique be. I hate extremes, yet I had rather stay With tombs than cradles, to wear out a day. Since such love's natural lation is, may still My love descend, and journey down the hill, Not panting after growing beauties. So, I shall ebb on with them who homeward go.

A Poetic Romance (excerpt) BOOK I A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing A flowery band to bind us to the earth, Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon For simple sheep; and such are daffodils With the green world they live in; and clear rills That for themselves a cooling covert make 'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake, Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms: And such too is the grandeur of the dooms We have imagined for the mighty dead; All lovely tales that we have heard or read: An endless fountain of immortal drink, Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink. Nor do we merely feel these essences For one short hour; no, even as the trees That whisper round a temple become soon Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon, The passion poesy, glories infinite, Haunt us till they become a cheering light Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast, That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast; They always must be with us, or we die. Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I Will trace the story of Endymion. The very music of the name has gone Into my being, and each pleasant scene Is growing fresh before me as the green Of our own valleys: so I will begin Now while I cannot hear the city's din; Now while the early budders are just new, And run in mazes of the youngest hue About old forests; while the willow trails Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer My little boat, for many quiet hours, With streams that deepen freshly into bowers. Many and many a verse I hope to write, Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white, Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas, I must be near the middle of my story. O may no wintry season, bare and hoary, See it half finish'd: but let Autumn bold, With universal tinge of sober gold, Be all about me when I make an end. And now, at once adventuresome, I send My herald thought into a wilderness: There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress My uncertain path with green, that I may speed Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.

à Geeta The brown girl, golden, sable-eyed, flourishing yellow hibiscus, steps exuberant, august, into August— her lushly brocaded gold silk sari lavishing honey light at her auburn feet, sandalled, cedarly, with scent of sandalwood haloing her, her individualized, warm, light-dark body, her every glance a direction of the air, her look of mischievous—even tart—sweetness.... O has she...? She has come in from morning’s slight autumnal chill, her feet moistened with diamantine dew— how the sea summers in grass (that same grass that rears at the sun while butterflies mob frangipani...). Behold her smile declaring warm, sun-dyed, terracotta lips— that chance come home— and I answer, “You are light uplifting, liberating me from murk, from an inferno of squalor.” O! Let there be rum and molasses, rice and mackerel, O Muse, the Indian Ocean softening and sweetening the Atlantic, this august autumn. All these pleasures we will prove: lotus like slow-motion lightning, ivory gold fountaining from earth, like you, a fresh light, sprung from earth.

Cold eyelids that hide like a jewel Hard eyes that grow soft for an hour; The heavy white limbs, and the cruel Red mouth like a venomous flower; When these are gone by with their glories, What shall rest of thee then, what remain, O mystic and sombre Dolores, Our Lady of Pain? Seven sorrows the priests give their Virgin; But thy sins, which are seventy times seven, Seven ages would fail thee to purge in, And then they would haunt thee in heaven: Fierce midnights and famishing morrows, And the loves that complete and control All the joys of the flesh, all the sorrows That wear out the soul. O garment not golden but gilded, O garden where all men may dwell, O tower not of ivory, but builded By hands that reach heaven from hell; O mystical rose of the mire, O house not of gold but of gain, O house of unquenchable fire, Our Lady of Pain! O lips full of lust and of laughter, Curled snakes that are fed from my breast, Bite hard, lest remembrance come after And press with new lips where you pressed. For my heart too springs up at the pressure, Mine eyelids too moisten and burn; Ah, feed me and fill me with pleasure, Ere pain come in turn. In yesterday's reach and to-morrow's, Out of sight though they lie of to-day, There have been and there yet shall be sorrows That smite not and bite not in play. The life and the love thou despisest, These hurt us indeed, and in vain, O wise among women, and wisest, Our Lady of Pain. Who gave thee thy wisdom? what stories That stung thee, what visions that smote? Wert thou pure and a maiden, Dolores, When desire took thee first by the throat? What bud was the shell of a blossom That all men may smell to and pluck? What milk fed thee first at what bosom? What sins gave thee suck? We shift and bedeck and bedrape us, Thou art noble and nude and antique; Libitina thy mother, Priapus Thy father, a Tuscan and Greek. We play with light loves in the portal, And wince and relent and refrain; Loves die, and we know thee immortal, Our Lady of Pain. Fruits fail and love dies and time ranges; Thou art fed with perpetual breath, And alive after infinite changes, And fresh from the kisses of death; Of languors rekindled and rallied, Of barren delights and unclean, Things monstrous and fruitless, a pallid And poisonous queen. Could you hurt me, sweet lips, though I hurt you? Men touch them, and change in a trice The lilies and languors of virtue For the raptures and roses of vice; Those lie where thy foot on the floor is, These crown and caress thee and chain, O splendid and sterile Dolores, Our Lady of Pain. There are sins it may be to discover, There are deeds it may be to delight. What new work wilt thou find for thy lover, What new passions for daytime or night? What spells that they know not a word of Whose lives are as leaves overblown? What tortures undreamt of, unheard of, Unwritten, unknown? Ah beautiful passionate body That never has ached with a heart! On thy mouth though the kisses are bloody, Though they sting till it shudder and smart, More kind than the love we adore is, They hurt not the heart or the brain, O bitter and tender Dolores, Our Lady of Pain. As our kisses relax and redouble, From the lips and the foam and the fangs Shall no new sin be born for men's trouble, No dream of impossible pangs? With the sweet of the sins of old ages Wilt thou satiate thy soul as of yore? Too sweet is the rind, say the sages, Too bitter the core. Hast thou told all thy secrets the last time, And bared all thy beauties to one? Ah, where shall we go then for pastime, If the worst that can be has been done? But sweet as the rind was the core is; We are fain of thee still, we are fain, O sanguine and subtle Dolores, Our Lady of Pain. By the hunger of change and emotion, By the thirst of unbearable things, By despair, the twin-born of devotion, By the pleasure that winces and stings, The delight that consumes the desire, The desire that outruns the delight, By the cruelty deaf as a fire And blind as the night, By the ravenous teeth that have smitten Through the kisses that blossom and bud, By the lips intertwisted and bitten Till the foam has a savour of blood, By the pulse as it rises and falters, By the hands as they slacken and strain, I adjure thee, respond from thine altars, Our Lady of Pain. Wilt thou smile as a woman disdaining The light fire in the veins of a boy? But he comes to thee sad, without feigning, Who has wearied of sorrow and joy; Less careful of labour and glory Than the elders whose hair has uncurled: And young, but with fancies as hoary And grey as the world. I have passed from the outermost portal To the shrine where a sin is a prayer; What care though the service be mortal? O our Lady of Torture, what care? All thine the last wine that I pour is, The last in the chalice we drain, O fierce and luxurious Dolores, Our Lady of Pain. All thine the new wine of desire, The fruit of four lips as they clung Till the hair and the eyelids took fire, The foam of a serpentine tongue, The froth of the serpents of pleasure, More salt than the foam of the sea, Now felt as a flame, now at leisure As wine shed for me. Ah thy people, thy children, thy chosen, Marked cross from the womb and perverse! They have found out the secret to cozen The gods that constrain us and curse; They alone, they are wise, and none other; Give me place, even me, in their train, O my sister, my spouse, and my mother, Our Lady of Pain. For the crown of our life as it closes Is darkness, the fruit thereof dust; No thorns go as deep as a rose's, And love is more cruel than lust. Time turns the old days to derision, Our loves into corpses or wives; And marriage and death and division Make barren our lives. And pale from the past we draw nigh thee, And satiate with comfortless hours; And we know thee, how all men belie thee, And we gather the fruit of thy flowers; The passion that slays and recovers, The pangs and the kisses that rain On the lips and the limbs of thy lovers, Our Lady of Pain. The desire of thy furious embraces Is more than the wisdom of years, On the blossom though blood lie in traces, Though the foliage be sodden with tears. For the lords in whose keeping the door is That opens on all who draw breath Gave the cypress to love, my Dolores, The myrtle to death. And they laughed, changing hands in the measure, And they mixed and made peace after strife; Pain melted in tears, and was pleasure; Death tingled with blood, and was life. Like lovers they melted and tingled, In the dusk of thine innermost fane; In the darkness they murmured and mingled, Our Lady of Pain. In a twilight where virtues are vices, In thy chapels, unknown of the sun, To a tune that enthralls and entices, They were wed, and the twain were as one. For the tune from thine altar hath sounded Since God bade the world's work begin, And the fume of thine incense abounded, To sweeten the sin. Love listens, and paler than ashes, Through his curls as the crown on them slips, Lifts languid wet eyelids and lashes, And laughs with insatiable lips. Thou shalt hush him with heavy caresses, With music that scares the profane; Thou shalt darken his eyes with thy tresses, Our Lady of Pain. Thou shalt blind his bright eyes though he wrestle, Thou shalt chain his light limbs though he strive; In his lips all thy serpents shall nestle, In his hands all thy cruelties thrive. In the daytime thy voice shall go through him, In his dreams he shall feel thee and ache; Thou shalt kindle by night and subdue him Asleep and awake. Thou shalt touch and make redder his roses With juice not of fruit nor of bud; When the sense in the spirit reposes, Thou shalt quicken the soul through the blood. Thine, thine the one grace we implore is, Who would live and not languish or feign, O sleepless and deadly Dolores, Our Lady of Pain. Dost thou dream, in a respite of slumber, In a lull of the fires of thy life, Of the days without name, without number, When thy will stung the world into strife; When, a goddess, the pulse of thy passion Smote kings as they revelled in Rome; And they hailed thee re-risen, O Thalassian, Foam-white, from the foam? When thy lips had such lovers to flatter; When the city lay red from thy rods, And thine hands were as arrows to scatter The children of change and their gods; When the blood of thy foemen made fervent A sand never moist from the main, As one smote them, their lord and thy servant, Our Lady of Pain. On sands by the storm never shaken, Nor wet from the washing of tides; Nor by foam of the waves overtaken, Nor winds that the thunder bestrides; But red from the print of thy paces, Made smooth for the world and its lords, Ringed round with a flame of fair faces, And splendid with swords. There the gladiator, pale for thy pleasure, Drew bitter and perilous breath; There torments laid hold on the treasure Of limbs too delicious for death; When thy gardens were lit with live torches; When the world was a steed for thy rein; When the nations lay prone in thy porches, Our Lady of Pain. When, with flame all around him aspirant, Stood flushed, as a harp-player stands, The implacable beautiful tyrant, Rose-crowned, having death in his hands; And a sound as the sound of loud water Smote far through the flight of the fires, And mixed with the lightning of slaughter A thunder of lyres. Dost thou dream of what was and no more is, The old kingdoms of earth and the kings? Dost thou hunger for these things, Dolores, For these, in a world of new things? But thy bosom no fasts could emaciate, No hunger compel to complain Those lips that no bloodshed could satiate, Our Lady of Pain. As of old when the world's heart was lighter, Through thy garments the grace of thee glows, The white wealth of thy body made whiter By the blushes of amorous blows, And seamed with sharp lips and fierce fingers, And branded by kisses that bruise; When all shall be gone that now lingers, Ah, what shall we lose? Thou wert fair in the fearless old fashion, And thy limbs are as melodies yet, And move to the music of passion With lithe and lascivious regret. What ailed us, O gods, to desert you For creeds that refuse and restrain? Come down and redeem us from virtue, Our Lady of Pain. All shrines that were Vestal are flameless, But the flame has not fallen from this; Though obscure be the god, and though nameless The eyes and the hair that we kiss; Low fires that love sits by and forges Fresh heads for his arrows and thine; Hair loosened and soiled in mid orgies With kisses and wine. Thy skin changes country and colour, And shrivels or swells to a snake's. Let it brighten and bloat and grow duller, We know it, the flames and the flakes, Red brands on it smitten and bitten, Round skies where a star is a stain, And the leaves with thy litanies written, Our Lady of Pain. On thy bosom though many a kiss be, There are none such as knew it of old. Was it Alciphron once or Arisbe, Male ringlets or feminine gold, That thy lips met with under the statue, Whence a look shot out sharp after thieves From the eyes of the garden-god at you Across the fig-leaves? Then still, through dry seasons and moister, One god had a wreath to his shrine; Then love was the pearl of his oyster, And Venus rose red out of wine. We have all done amiss, choosing rather Such loves as the wise gods disdain; Intercede for us thou with thy father, Our Lady of Pain. In spring he had crowns of his garden, Red corn in the heat of the year, Then hoary green olives that harden When the grape-blossom freezes with fear; And milk-budded myrtles with Venus And vine-leaves with Bacchus he trod; And ye said, "We have seen, he hath seen us, A visible God." What broke off the garlands that girt you? What sundered you spirit and clay? Weak sins yet alive are as virtue To the strength of the sins of that day. For dried is the blood of thy lover, Ipsithilla, contracted the vein; Cry aloud, "Will he rise and recover, Our Lady of Pain?" Cry aloud; for the old world is broken: Cry out; for the Phrygian is priest, And rears not the bountiful token And spreads not the fatherly feast. From the midmost of Ida, from shady Recesses that murmur at morn, They have brought and baptized her, Our Lady, A goddess new-born. And the chaplets of old are above us, And the oyster-bed teems out of reach; Old poets outsing and outlove us, And Catullus makes mouths at our speech. Who shall kiss, in thy father's own city, With such lips as he sang with, again? Intercede for us all of thy pity, Our Lady of Pain. Out of Dindymus heavily laden Her lions draw bound and unfed A mother, a mortal, a maiden, A queen over death and the dead. She is cold, and her habit is lowly, Her temple of branches and sods; Most fruitful and virginal, holy, A mother of gods. She hath wasted with fire thine high places, She hath hidden and marred and made sad The fair limbs of the Loves, the fair faces Of gods that were goodly and glad. She slays, and her hands are not bloody; She moves as a moon in the wane, White-robed, and thy raiment is ruddy, Our Lady of Pain. They shall pass and their places be taken, The gods and the priests that are pure. They shall pass, and shalt thou not be shaken? They shall perish, and shalt thou endure? Death laughs, breathing close and relentless In the nostrils and eyelids of lust, With a pinch in his fingers of scentless And delicate dust. But the worm shall revive thee with kisses; Thou shalt change and transmute as a god, As the rod to a serpent that hisses, As the serpent again to a rod. Thy life shall not cease though thou doff it; Thou shalt live until evil be slain, And good shall die first, said thy prophet, Our Lady of Pain. Did he lie? did he laugh? does he know it, Now he lies out of reach, out of breath, Thy prophet, thy preacher, thy poet, Sin's child by incestuous Death? Did he find out in fire at his waking, Or discern as his eyelids lost light, When the bands of the body were breaking And all came in sight? Who has known all the evil before us, Or the tyrannous secrets of time? Though we match not the dead men that bore us At a song, at a kiss, at a crime — Though the heathen outface and outlive us, And our lives and our longings are twain — Ah, forgive us our virtues, forgive us, Our Lady of Pain. Who are we that embalm and embrace thee With spices and savours of song? What is time, that his children should face thee? What am I, that my lips do thee wrong? I could hurt thee — but pain would delight thee; Or caress thee — but love would repel; And the lovers whose lips would excite thee Are serpents in hell. Who now shall content thee as they did, Thy lovers, when temples were built And the hair of the sacrifice braided And the blood of the sacrifice spilt, In Lampsacus fervent with faces, In Aphaca red from thy reign, Who embraced thee with awful embraces, Our Lady of Pain? Where are they, Cotytto or Venus, Astarte or Ashtaroth, where? Do their hands as we touch come between us? Is the breath of them hot in thy hair? From their lips have thy lips taken fever, With the blood of their bodies grown red? Hast thou left upon earth a believer If these men are dead? They were purple of raiment and golden, Filled full of thee, fiery with wine, Thy lovers, in haunts unbeholden, In marvellous chambers of thine. They are fled, and their footprints escape us, Who appraise thee, adore, and abstain, O daughter of Death and Priapus, Our Lady of Pain. What ails us to fear overmeasure, To praise thee with timorous breath, O mistress and mother of pleasure, The one thing as certain as death? We shall change as the things that we cherish, Shall fade as they faded before, As foam upon water shall perish, As sand upon shore. We shall know what the darkness discovers, If the grave-pit be shallow or deep; And our fathers of old, and our lovers, We shall know if they sleep not or sleep. We shall see whether hell be not heaven, Find out whether tares be not grain, And the joys of thee seventy times seven, Our Lady of Pain.