1247 Love poems

He found her by the ocean’s moaning verge, Nor any wicked change in her discerned; And she believed his old love had returned, Which was her exultation, and her scourge. She took his hand, and walked with him, and seemed The wife he sought, though shadow-like and dry. She had one terror, lest her heart should sigh, And tell her loudly that she no longer dreamed. She dared not say, ‘This is my breast: look in.’ But there’s a strength to help the desperate weak. That night he learned how silence best can speak The awful things when Pity pleads for Sin. About the middle of the night her call Was heard, and he came wondering to the bed. ‘Now kiss me, dear! it may be, now!’ she said. Lethe had passed those lips, and he knew all.

At last we parley: we so strangely dumb In such a close communion! It befell About the sounding of the Matin-bell, And lo! her place was vacant, and the hum Of loneliness was round me. Then I rose, And my disordered brain did guide my foot To that old wood where our first love-salute Was interchanged: the source of many throes! There did I see her, not alone. I moved Toward her, and made proffer of my arm. She took it simply, with no rude alarm; And that disturbing shadow passed reproved. I felt the pained speech coming, and declared My firm belief in her, ere she could speak. A ghastly morning came into her cheek, While with a widening soul on me she stared.

Their sense is with their senses all mixed in, Destroyed by subtleties these women are! More brain, O Lord, more brain! or we shall mar Utterly this fair garden we might win. Behold! I looked for peace, and thought it near. Our inmost hearts had opened, each to each. We drank the pure daylight of honest speech. Alas! that was the fatal draught, I fear. For when of my lost Lady came the word, This woman, O this agony of flesh! Jealous devotion bade her break the mesh, That I might seek that other like a bird. I do adore the nobleness! despise The act! She has gone forth, I know not where. Will the hard world my sentience of her share? I feel the truth; so let the world surmise.

What may the woman labour to confess? There is about her mouth a nervous twitch. 'Tis something to be told, or hidden:—which? I get a glimpse of hell in this mild guess. She has desires of touch, as if to feel That all the household things are things she knew. She stops before the glass. What sight in view? A face that seems the latest to reveal! For she turns from it hastily, and tossed Irresolute, steals shadow-like to where I stand; and wavering pale before me there, Her tears fall still as oak-leaves after frost. She will not speak. I will not ask. We are League-sundered by the silent gulf between. Yon burly lovers on the village green, Yours is a lower, and a happier star!

Love ere he bleeds, an eagle in high skies, Has earth beneath his wings: from reddened eve He views the rosy dawn. In vain they weave The fatal web below while far he flies. But when the arrow strikes him, there's a change. He moves but in the track of his spent pain, Whose red drops are the links of a harsh chain, Binding him to the ground, with narrow range. A subtle serpent then has Love become. I had the eagle in my bosom erst: Henceforward with the serpent I am cursed. I can interpret where the mouth is dumb. Speak, and I see the side-lie of a truth. Perchance my heart may pardon you this deed: But be no coward:—you that made Love bleed, You must bear all the venom of his tooth!

What are we first? First, animals; and next Intelligences at a leap; on whom Pale lies the distant shadow of the tomb, And all that draweth on the tomb for text. Into which state comes Love, the crowning sun: Beneath whose light the shadow loses form. We are the lords of life, and life is warm. Intelligence and instinct now are one. But nature says: "My children most they seem When they least know me: therefore I decree That they shall suffer." Swift doth young Love flee, And we stand wakened, shivering from our dream. Then if we study Nature we are wise. Thus do the few who live but with the day: The scientific animals are they— Lady, this is my sonnet to your eyes.

Madam would speak with me. So, now it comes: The Deluge or else Fire! She's well, she thanks My husbandship. Our chain on silence clanks. Time leers between, above his twiddling thumbs. Am I quite well? Most excellent in health! The journals, too, I diligently peruse. Vesuvius is expected to give news: Niagara is no noisier. By stealth Our eyes dart scrutinizing snakes. She's glad I'm happy, says her quivering under-lip. "And are not you?" "How can I be?" "Take ship! For happiness is somewhere to be had." "Nowhere for me!" Her voice is barely heard. I am not melted, and make no pretence. With commonplace I freeze her, tongue and sense. Niagara or Vesuvius is deferred.

The lowest trees have tops, the ant her gall, The fly her spleen, the little sparks their heat; The slender hairs cast shadows, though but small, And bees have stings, although they be not great; Seas have their source, and so have shallow springs; And love is love, in beggars as in kings. Where rivers smoothest run, deep are the fords; The dial stirs, yet none perceives it move; The firmest faith is in the fewest words; The turtles cannot sing, and yet they love: True hearts have eyes and ears, no tongues to speak; They hear and see, and sigh, and then they break.

(1942) To Denis Devlin I Again the native hour lets down the locks Uncombed and black, but gray the bobbing beard; Ten years ago His eyes, fierce shuttlecocks, Pierced the close net of what I failed: I feared The belly-cold, the grave-clout, that betrayed Me dithering in the drift of cordial seas; Ten years are time enough to be dismayed By mummy Christ, head crammed between his knees. Suppose I take an arrogant bomber, stroke By stroke, up to the frazzled sun to hear Sun-ghostlings whisper: Yes, the capital yoke— Remove it and there’s not a ghost to fear This crucial day, whose decapitate joke Languidly winds into the inner ear. II The day’s at end and there’s nowhere to go, Draw to the fire, even this fire is dying; Get up and once again politely lying Invite the ladies toward the mistletoe With greedy eyes that stare like an old crow. How pleasantly the holly wreaths did hang And how stuffed Santa did his reindeer clang Above the golden oaken mantel, years ago! Then hang this picture for a calendar, As sheep for goat, and pray most fixedly For the cold martial progress of your star, With thoughts of commerce and society, Well-milked Chinese, Negroes who cannot sing, The Huns gelded and feeding in a ring. III Give me this day a faith not personal As follows: The American people fully armed With assurance policies, righteous and harmed, Battle the world of which they’re not at all. That lying boy of ten who stood in the hall, His hat in hand (thus by his father charmed: “You may be President”), was not alarmed Nor even left uneasy by his fall. Nobody said that he could be a plumber, Carpenter, clerk, bus-driver, bombardier; Let little boys go into violent slumber, Aegean squall and squalor where their fear Is of an enemy in remote oceans Unstalked by Christ: these are the better notions. IV Gay citizen, myself, and thoughtful friend, Your ghosts are Plato’s Christians in the cave. Unfix your necks, turn to the door; the nave Gives back the cheated and light dividend So long sequestered; now, new-rich, you’ll spend Flesh for reality inside a stone Whose light obstruction, like a gossamer bone, Dead or still living, will not break or bend. Thus light, your flesh made pale and sinister And put off like a dog that’s had his day, You will be Plato’s kept philosopher, Albino man bleached from the mortal clay, Mild-mannered, gifted in your master’s ease While the sun squats upon the waveless seas.

Most like an arch—an entrance which upholds and shores the stone-crush up the air like lace. Mass made idea, and idea held in place. A lock in time. Inside half-heaven unfolds. Most like an arch—two weaknesses that lean into a strength. Two fallings become firm. Two joined abeyances become a term naming the fact that teaches fact to mean. Not quite that? Not much less. World as it is, what’s strong and separate falters. All I do at piling stone on stone apart from you is roofless around nothing. Till we kiss I am no more than upright and unset. It is by falling in and in we make the all-bearing point, for one another’s sake, in faultless failing, raised by our own weight.