THE STAR AND THE GARTER

THE STAR &

THE GARTER

BY ALEISTER

CROWLEY

POPULAR

EDITION

SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF RELIGIOUS TRUTH

BOLESKINE HOUSE, FOYERS, INVERNESS

1904

ΑΓΝΩΣΤΩ

ΘΕΩ

THE STAR AND THE GARTER.

I

WHAT sadness closes in between

Your eyes and mine to-day, my Queen?

In dewfall of our glance hath come

A chill like sunset’s in hot lands

’Mid iris and chrysanthemum.

Well do I know the shaken sands

Within the surf, the beaten bar

Of coral, the white nenuphar

Of moonrise stealing o’er the bay.

So here’s the darkness, and the day

Sinks, and a chill clusters, and I

Wrap close the cloak: then is it so

To-day, you rose-gleam on the snow,

My own true lover? Ardently

I dare not look: I never looked

So: that you know. But insight keen

We (laugh and) call not “love.” Now crooked

The light swerves somehow. Do you mean—

What? There is coldness and regret

Set like the stinging winter spray

Blown blind back from a waterfall

On Cumbrian moors at Christmas. Wet

The cold cheek numbs itself. A way

Is here to make—an end of all?

What sadness closes in between

Your eyes and mine to-day, my Queen?

II

You are silent. That we always were.

The racing lustres of your hair

Spelt out its sunny message, though

The room was dusk: a rosy glow

Shed from an antique lamp to fall

On the deep crimson of the wall,

And over all the ancient grace

Of shawls, and ivory, and gems

To cast its glamour, till your face

The eye might fall upon and rest,

The temperate flower, the tropic stems.

You were silent, and I too. Caressed

The secret flames that curled around

Our subtle intercourse. Profound,

Unmoved, delighting utterly,

So sat, so sit, my love and I.

But not to-day. Your silence stirs

No answering rapture: you are proud,

And love itself checks and deters

The thought to say itself aloud.

Oh! heart of amber and fine gold

Silverly darting lunar rays!

Oh! river of sweet passion rolled

Adown invisible waterways!

Speak! Did I wound you then unguessed?

What is the sorrow unexpressed

That shadows those ecstatic lids?

A word in season subtly rids

The heart of thoughts unseasonable.

You are silent. Do they speak in hell?

III

Is it your glance that told me? Nay!

I know you would not look that way.

Seeing, you strove to see not. Fool!

I have ruined all in one rash deed.

Learnt I not in discretion’s school

The little care that lovers need?

For see—I bite my lip to blood;

A stifled word of anguish hisses:—

O the black word that dams thought’s flood!

O the bad lip that looked for kisses!

O the poor fool that prates of love!

Is it a garter, or a glove?

IV

A fool indeed! For why complain,

Now the last five-barred gate is ope,

Held by a little boy? I hope

The hour is handy to explain

The final secret. Have I any?

Yes! the small boy shall have a penny!

Now you are angry? Be content!

Not fee the assistant accident

That shows our quarry—love—at bay?

My silver-throated queen, away!

Huntress of heaven, by my side,

As moon by meteor, rushing, ride!

Among the stars, ride on! ride on!

(Then, maybe, bid the boy begone!)

V

I am a boy in this. Alas!

Look round on all the world of men!

The boys are oft of genus “ass.”

Think yourself lucky, lady, then,

If I at least am boy. You laugh?

Not you! Is this love’s epitaph,

God’s worm erect on Herod’s throne?

“Ah, if I only had not known!”

All wrong, belovéd! Truth be ours,

The one white flower (of all the flowers)

You ever cared for! Ignorance

May set its puppets up to dance;

We know who pulls the strings. No sage;

A man unwashed, the bearded brute!

His wife, the mother-prostitute!

Behind the marionetted stage

See the true Punch-and-Judy show,

Turn copper so to silver! Know,

And who can help forgiving? So

Said some French thinker. Here’s a drench

Of verse unquestionably French

To follow! so, while youth is youth,

And time is time, and I am I,

Too busy with my work to lie,

Or love lie’s prize—or work’s, forsooth!—

Too strong to care which way may go

The ensuing history of woe,

Though I were jaw, and you were tooth;

So, more concerned with seeking sense

Than worried over consequence,

I’ll speak, and you shall hear, the truth.

VI

Truth, like old Gaul, is split in three.

A lesson in anatomy,

A sketch of sociology,

A tale of love to end. But see!

What stirs the electric flame of eyes?

One word—that word. Be destiny’s

Inviolate fiat rolled athwart

The clouds and cobwebs of our speech,

And image, integrate of thought,

This ebony anthem, each to each:—

To lie, invulnerable, alone,

Valkyrie and hero, in the zone,

Shielded by lightnings of our wit,

Guarded by fires of intellect

Far on the mountain-top, elect

Of all the hills divinely lit

By rays of moonrise! O the moon!

O the interminable tune

Of whispered kisses! Love exults,

Intolerant of all else than he,

And ecstasy invades, insults,

Outshines the waves of harmony,

Lapped in the sun of day; the tides

Of wonder flow, the shore subsides;

And over all the horizon

Glows the last glimmer of the sun.

Ah! when the moon arises, she

Shall look on nothing but the sea.

VII

O love! and were I with thee ever!

Come with me over the round earth,

O’er lake and fountain, sea and river!

Girdle the world with angel girth

Of angel voyage! Shall we roam

In teeming jungles poisonous?

Or make ourselves an eyrie-home

Where the black ice roars ravenous

In glittering avalanche? Or else

Hide in some corrie on the fells

Of heather and bracken, or delight

In grottos built of stalactite?

Or be our lonely haunt the sand

Of the Sahara: let us go

Where some oasis, subtly planned

For love, invites the afterglow!

There let us live alone, except

Some bearded horseman, pennoned, ride

Over the waste of ochre, swept

By wind in waves, and sit beside

Our tent a little, bring us news

Of the great world we have lost for—this!

What fool exclaims—“to lose!”? To lose?

Ah! earth and heaven for one small kiss!

But he shall sing beside our fire

The epic of the world’s desire;

How Freedom fares, how Art yet revels

Sane in the dance of dogs and devils.

His thunder voice shall climb and crash,

Scourge liars with tongue’s lightning lash,

Through ranks of smitten tyrants drive,

Till bosoms heave, and eyes outflash,

And it is good to be alive.

He shall ride off at dawn, and we

Shall look upon our life again;

You old, and all your beauty be

Broken, and mine a broken brain.

Yet we shall know; delighting still

In the sole laughter death derides

In vain; the indomitable will,

Still burning in the spirit, guides

Our hearts to truth; we see, we know

How foolish were the things he said,

And answer in the afterglow

How good it is that we are dead.

Will you not come? Or, where the surf

Beats on the coral, and the palm

Sways slowly in the eternal calm

Of spring, I know a mound of turf

Good for our love to lie on; good

For breezes, and for sun and shade;

To hear the murmur of the flood;

To taste the kava subtly made

To rouse to Bacchic ecstasy,

Since Dionysus silently

Faded from Greece, now only smiles

Amid the soft Hawaian isles;

Good, above all the good, to keep

Our bodies when we sleep the sleep.

VIII

Make me a roseleaf with your mouth,

And I will waft it through the air

To some far garden of the South,

The herald of our happening there!

Fragrant, caressing, steals the breeze;

Curls into kisses on your lips:—

I know interminable seas,

Winged ardour of the stately ships,

Space of incalculable blue

And years enwreathed in one close crown,

And glimmering laughters echoing you

From reverend shades of bard’s renown:—

Nature alive and glad to hymn

Your beauty, my delight: her God

Weary, his old eyes sad and dim

In his intolerable abode.

All things that are, unknown and known,

Bending in homage to your eyes;

We wander wondering, lift alone

The world’s grey load of agonies.

Make me a roseleaf with your mouth,

That all the savour steal afar

Unto the sad awaiting South,

Where sits enthroned the answering Star.

IX

Will you not come: the unequal fever

Of Paris hold our lives for ever?

Were it not better to exceed

The avenging thought, the unmeaning deed,

Make one strong act at least? How small,

How idiot our lives! These folk

That think they live—which dares at all

To act? The suicide that broke

His chain, and lies so waxen pale

In the Morgue to-day? Did he then fail?

Ay, he was beaten. But to live,

Slink on through what the world can give,

That is a hound’s life too. For me,

The suicide stands grand and free

Beside these others. Was it fear

Drove him to stand upon the bank?

The Paris lights shone far and drear;

The mist was down; the night was dank;

The Seine ran easily underneath;

The air was chill: he knew the Seine

By pain would put an end to pain,

And jumped,—and struggled against death,

I doubt not. Ye courageous men

That scorn to flee the world, ye slaves

Of commerce, ye that ply the pen,

That dig, and fill, and loathe your graves!

Ye counter-jumpers, clergy, Jews,

All Paris, smug and good, that use

To point the index scorn, deride

The courage of that suicide—

I ask you not to quit us quite,

But—will you take a bath to-night?

Money might make you. Well: but he,

What was his wage, what was his fee?

Fear fiercer than a mortal fear.

Be silent, cowards, leave him here

Dead in the Morgue, so waxen pale!

He failed: shall ye not also fail?

Ah! love! the strings are little;

     The cords are over strong;

The chain of life is brittle;

     And keen the sword of song.

Will you not seize in one firm grip

Now, as I hold you, lip to lip,

The serpent of Event, hold hard

Its slipping coils, its writhe retard,

And snap its spine? Delicate hands

You have: the work is difficult;

Effort that holds and understands

May do it: shall our foes exult,

The daughters of Philistia laugh,

The girls of Askalon rejoice,

Writing for us this epitaph:

“They chose, and were not worth the choice”?

You are so pure: I am a man.

I will assume the courage tried

Of yonder luckless suicide,

Any you—awaken, if you can,

The courage of the courtezan!

X

To sea! To sea! The ship is trim;

The breezes bend the sails.

They chant the necromantic hymn,

Arouse Arabian tales.

To sea! Before us leap the waves;

The wild white combers follow.

Invoke, ye melancholy slaves,

The morning of Apollo!

There’s phosphorescence in the wake,

And starlight o’er the prow.

One comet, like an angry snake,

Lifts up its hooded brow.

The black grows grey toward the East:

A hint of silver glows.

Gods gather to the mystic feast

On interlunar snows.

The moon is up full-orbed: she glides

Striking a snaky ray

Across the black resounding tides,

The sepulchre of day.

The moon is up: upon the prow

We stand and watch the moon.

A star is lustred on your brow;

Your lips begin a tune,

A long, low tune of love that swells

Little by little, and lights

The overarching miracles

Of love’s desire, and Night’s.

It swells, it rolls to triumph-song

Through luminous black skies;

Thrills into silence sharp and strong,

Assumes its peace, and dies.

There is the night: it covers close

The lilies folded fair

Of all your beauty, and the rose

Half hidden in your hair.

There is the night: unseen I stand

And look to seaward still:

We would not look upon the land

Again, had I my will.

The ship is trim: to sea! to sea!

Take life in either hand,

Crush out its wine for you and me,

And drink, and understand!

XI

I am a pretty advocate!

My speech has served me ill. Perchance

Silence had served: you now look straight

On that clear evidence of France,

The embroidered garter yonder. Wait!

I had some confidence in fate

Ere I spoke thus. For while I spoke

The old smile, surely helpless, broke

On your tired lips: the old light woke

In your deep eyes: but silence falls

Blank, blank: the species that appals,

Not our old silence. I devise

A motto for your miseries:

“There an embroidered garter lies,

And here words—they lie too?” I see

Your intuition of the truth

Is still in its—most charming—youth.

You need that physiology!

XII

I love you. That seems simple? No!

Hear what the physiologist

Says on the subject. To and fro

The motor axis of the brain

Hits on the cerebellum hard,

Makes the medulla itch: the bard

Twitches his spinal cord again,

Excites Rolando’s fissure, and

Impinges on the Pineal gland.

Then Hippocampus major strikes

The nerves, and we may say “He likes,”

But if the umbilical cord

Cut the cerebrum like a sword,

And afferent ganglia, sensory bones,

Shake in the caecum: then one groans

“He likes Miss What’s your Name.” And if

The appendix vermiformis biff

The pericardium, pleura shoves

The femur—we may say: “He loves.”

Here is the mechanism strange

(But perfectly correct) to change

My normal calm—seraphic dew!

Into an ardent love for you.

XIII

Is there a soul behind the mask?

What master drives these slaves to task

Thus willing? Physiology

Wipes the red scalpel, scorns reply.

My argument to please you swerves,

Becomes a mere defence of nerves.

Why they are thus, why so they act,

We know not, but accept the fact.

How this for my peccation serves?

Marry, how? Tropically! Pact

I bind with blood to show you use

For this impertinence—and add

A proverb fit to make you mad

About the gander and the goose,

Till you riposte with all your force

A miserable pun on sauce.

The battle when you will! This truce

I take in vantage, hold my course.

I see mechanic causes reach

Back through eternity, inform

The stellar drift, the solar storm,

The protoplasmic shiver, each

Little or great, determinate

In law for Fate, the Ultimate.

If this be meaningless, much more

Vacant your speech and sophic skill

(My feminine and fair Escobar!)

To prove mere circumstance is no bar

Against the freedom of the will.

However this may be, we are

Here and not otherwhere, star to star!

Hence then act thou! Restrain the “Damn!”

Evoked by “I am that I am.”

Perpend! (Hark back to Hamlet!) If

You stand thus poised upon the cliff

Freewill—I await that will; (One) laughter;

(Two) the old kiss; (Three) silence after.

No? Then vacate the laboratory!

Psychology must crown the event,

And sociology content,

Ethics suffice, the simple story!

(Oh! that a woman ever went

Through course of science full and whole,

Without the loss of beauty’s scent,

And grace, and subtlety of soul.

Ah God! this Law maketh hearts ache,

“Who eateth shall not have his cake.”)

XIV

Accept me as I am! I give

All you can take. If you dislike

Some fragments of the life I live,

They are not yours: I scorn to strike

One sword-swift pang against your peace.

See! I’m a mountaineer. Release

That spirit from your bonds: or come

With me upon the mountains, cease

This dull round, this addition sum

Of follies we call France: indeed

Cipher! And if at times I need

The golden dawn upon the Alps,

The gorges of Himalayan rock,

The grey and ancient hills, the scalps

Of hoary hills, the rattling shock

Of avalanche adown the hills—

Why, what but you, your image, fills

My heart in these? I want you there.

For whom but you do I ply pen,

Talk with unmentionable men

Of proofs and types—dull things!—for whom

But you am I the lover? Bloom,

O flower, immortal flower, love, love!

Linger about me and above,

Thou perfumed haze of incense-mist!

The air hath circled me and kissed

Here in this room, on mountains far,

Yonder to seaward, toward yon star,

With your own kisses. Yes! I see

The roseate embroidery

Yonder—I know: it seems to give

The lie to me in throat and teeth.

That is the surface: underneath

I live in you: in you I live.

XV

Will you not learn to separate

The essential from the accidental,

Love from desire, caprice from fate,

The inmost from the merely mental?

Our star, the sun, gives life and light:

Let that decay, the aeons drown

Sense in stagnation; death and night

Smite the fallen fragments of the crown

Of spring: but serves the garter so?

What wandering meteor is this

Across the archipelago

Luminous of our starry bliss?

Let that be lost: the smile disputes

The forehead’s temple with the frown,

When gravitation’s arrow shoots,

And stockings happen to slip down.

You are my heart: the central fire

Whereby my being burns and moves,

The mainspring of my life’s desire,

The essential engine that approves

The will to live: and these frail friends,

The women I shall draw you, fail

Of more importance to earth’s ends

Than to my life a finger-nail.

’Twere pain, no doubt, were torn away

One, a minute distemperature.

I spend a fraction of the day

Plying the art of manicure.

But always beats the heart: the more

I polish, tint, or carve, I ask

Strength from the heart’s too generous store

To bend my fingers to the task.

Cease: I am broken: nought remains.

The brain’s electric waves are still;

No blood beats eager in the veins;

The mind sinks deathward, and the will.

It is no figure of boy’s speech,

Lover’s enthusiasm, rhyme

Magniloquent of bard, to reach

Truth through the husk of space and time:

No truth is more devout than this:

“In you I live: I live in you.”

Had Latmos not known Artemis,

Where were the faint lights of that dew

Of Keats? O maiden moon of mine,

Imperial crescent, rise and shine!

XVI

I was a fool to hide it. Here

Phantoms arise and disappear,

Obedient to the master’s wand.

The incense curls like a pale frond

Of some grey garden glory about

This room; I take my sceptre out,

My royal crown; invoke, evoke

These phantoms in the glimmering smoke;

And you shall see—and take no hurt—

The very limb yon garter girt.

XVII

I am a man. Consider first

What we may learn, if but we will,

From that small lecture I rehearsed

With very Huxley’s strength and skill

And clarity. What do I mean,

Admitting manhood? This: to-day

I fed on oysters, ris-de-veau,

Beefsteak and grapes. Will you repay

My meal with anger, rosy grow

With shame because instead of you

I went to feed chez Lavenue?

The habit anthropophagous,

Nice as it is, is not for us.

I love you: will you share my life,

Become my mistress or my wife?

Agreed: but can your kisses feed me?

Is it for dinner that you need me?

But think: it is for you I eat.

Even as the object that I see,

The brain ’tis pictured in; the beat

Of nerves that mean the picture are

Not like it, but dissimilar.

How can a nervous current be

Like that Velasquez? So I find

Dinner a function of the mind,

Not like you, but essential to

(Even it) my honest love of you.

Consider then yon broidered toy

In the same aspect! Steals no joy

Glittering beneath the sad pale face?

XVIII

Still grave, my budding Arahat?

I see the crux of my disgrace

Lies in the mad idea that—that!—

Is not dissimilar, usurps

The very function I have given

Blissful beyond the bliss of heaven—

Aha! there is a bird that chirps

Another song. Here’s paint and brush

And canvas. I will paint anon

The limb yon garter once was on;

Sketch you a nude—my soul—and nude

The very human attitude

We all assume—or else are posers.

Such winners are the surest losers.

I paint her picture, recognise—

Dare you? one glimmer of her eyes

Like yours, one shimmer of her skin

Like that your flesh is hidden in,

One laugh upon her lips enough

Like yours for me to recollect,

Remind, recall, hint? Never! Stuff!

You are, as aye, alone, elect.

Shall we then dive in Paris sewers?

Ay! but not find you there, nor yet

Your likeness. Did you then forget

You are my love? Arise and shine!

It was your blasphemy, not mine.

XIX

A faint sweet smell of ether haunts

Yet the remembrance. Hear the wizard

His lone and melancholy chaunts

Roared in the rain-storm and the blizzard!

The ancient and devoted dizzard!

Appear, thou dream of loveliness!

She wore a rose and amber dress,

With broidery of old gold. Her hair

Was long and starry, gilded red.

Her face was laughter, shapen fair

By the sweet things she thought and said.

Her whiteness rustled as she walked.

Her hair sang tunes across the air.

She sighed, laughed, whispered, never talked.

She smiled, and loves devout and rare

Flickered about the room. She stayed

Still in the dusk: her body sang

Out full and clear “O love me!” Rang

The silver couplets undismayed,

Bright, bold, convincing. In her eyes

Glittered enamelled sorceries.

She was a piece of jewel work

Sold by a Christian to a Turk.

She had fed on air that day: the flowers

About her curled, ambrosial bowers

Of some divine perfume: the soul

Of ether made her wise; control

Of strong distilled delight. She showered

Wit and soft laughter and desire

About her breasts in bliss embowered,

And subtle and devouring fire

Leapt in live sparks about her limbs.

Her spirit shields me, and bedims

My sight: she needs me: I need her.

She is mine: she calls me: sob and stir

Strange pulses of old passionate

Imperial ecstasies of fate.

Destiny; manhood; fear; delight;

Desire; accomplishment; ere night

Dipped her pale plumes to greet the sun

She was not; all is past and done.

A dream? I wake from blissful sleep,

But is it real? Well, I keep

An accidental souvenir

Whence thus to chronicle small beer;

There is the garter. Launched our boat,

The stately pinnace once afloat,

You shall hear all; we will not land

On this or that mediate strand,

Until the voyage be done, and we

Pass from the river to the sea,

And find some isle’s secluded nook

More sacred than we first forsook.

XX

Yes, there are other phases, dear!

Here is a pocket-book, and here

Lies a wee letter. Floral thyrse?

Divine-tipped narthex of the pine,

Or morphia’s deceitful wine?

The French is ill, the spelling worse!—

But this is horrible! This, me?

The upholder of propriety,

Who actually proposed to form

A club to shield us from the swarm

Of common people of no class

Who throng the Quartier Montparnasse!

I wear a collar: loudly shout

That folk are pigs that go without,—

And here you find me up a tree

To make my concierge blush for me!

A girl “uncombed, so badly dressed,

So rudely mannered—and the rest;

Not at all proper. Fie! away!

What would your lady mother say?”

I tell you, I was put to it

To wake a wonder of my wit

Winged, to avail me from the scorn

Of my own concierge. Adorn

The facts I might; you know them not;

But that were just the one black blot

On this love’s lesson: still, to excuse

Myself to you, who could not choose

But make some weak apology

Before the concierge’s eye!

True, you are far too high to accuse—

Perhaps would rather not be told?

You shall hear. Does a miner lose

If through the quartz he gets to gold?

Yes: Nina was a thing of nought,

A little laughing lewd gamine,

Idle and vicious, void of thought,

Easy, impertinent, unclean—

Utterly charming! Yes, my queen!

She had a generous baby soul,

Prattled of love. Should I control,

Repress perhaps the best instinct

The child had ever had? I winked

At foolish neighbours, did not shirk.

Such café Turc I made her drink

As she had never had before;

Set her where you are sitting; chatted;

Found where the fires of laughter lurk;

Played with her hair, tangled and matted;

Fell over strict nice conduct’s brink,

Gave all she would, and something more.

She was an honest little thing,

Gave of her best, asked no response.

What more could Heaven’s immortal king

Censed with innumerous orisons?

So, by that grace, I recognized

A something somewhere to be prized

Somewhat. What portress studies song?

My worthy concierge was wrong.

XXI

Then let not memory shrink abashed,

Once started on this giddy whirl!

Hath not a lightning image flashed

Of my divine boot-button girl?

She is a dainty acrobat,

Tailor-made from tip to toe;

A tiniest coquettish hat,

A laughing face alight, aglow

With all the fun of life. She comes

Often at morning, laughs aloud

At the poor femm de ménage; hums

Some dancing tune, invades my cloud

Of idle dreams, sits poised upon

The couch, and with a gay embrace

Cries out “Hullo, my baby!” Shone

Such nature in a holier face?

We are a happy pair at least:

Coffee and rolls are worth a feast,

And laughing as she came she goes!

The dainty little tuberose!

She has a lithe white body, slim

And limber, fairy-like, a snake

Hissing some Babylonian hymn

Tangled in the Assyrian brake.

She stole upon me as I slept:

Who wonders I am nympholept?

Her face is round and hard and small

And pretty—hence the name I gave her

Of the boot-button girl. Appal

These words? Ah, would your spirit save her?

She’s right just as she is: so wise

You look through hardly-opened eyes

One would believe you could do better.

Ma foi! And is your God your debtor?

So, my true love, I paint you three

Portraits of women that love me.

XXII

These portraits, darling, are they yours?

And yet there sticks the vital fact

That these, as you, are women. Lures

The devil of the inexact

With subtle leasing? Nay! O nay!

I’ll catch him with a cord, draw out

By a bent fish-hook through his snout,

Give to my maiden for a play.

You, they, and dinner and—what else?—

However unlike, coincide

In composition verified

Of final protoplasmic cells.

Shall this avail to stagger thought,

Confuse the reason, bring to nought

The rosebud, in reflecting: Hem!

What beauty hath the flower and stem?

Carbon we know, and nitrogen,

And oxygen—are these a rose?

But this though everybody knows,

That this should be the same for men

They know not. Death may decompose,

Reduce to primal hyle perchance—

I shall not do it in advance!

So let the accidental fact

That these are women, fall away

To black oblivion: be the pact

Concluded firm enough to-day,

Not thus to err. So you are not

In essence or in function one

With these, the unpardonable blot

On knighthood’s shield, the sombre spot

Seen on the photosphere of sun.

XXIII

“Nay! that were nothing,” say you now,

Poor baby of the weary brow,

Struggling with metaphysic lore?

“But these, being women, gave you more:

“You spoke of love!” Indeed I did,

And you must counter me unbid,

Forgetting how we must define

This floral love of yours and mine.

That love and this are as diverse

As Shelley’s poems and my verse.

And now the bright laugh comes in spite

Of all the cruel will can do.

“I take,” you say, “a keen delight

In Shelley, but as much in you.”

There, you are foolish. And you know

The thing I meant to say. O love!

What little lightnings serve to show

Glimpses of all your heart! Above

All, and beneath all, lies there deep,

Canopied over with young sleep,

Bowered in the lake of nenuphars,

Watched by the countless store of stars,

The abiding love you bear me. Hear

How perfect love casts flying fear

Forth from its chambers! Those and this

Are utterly apart. The bliss

Of this small quarrel far exceeds

That dervish rapture, dancer deeds

Strained for egregious emphasis.

These touch you not! You sit alone

Passionless upon passion’s throne,

And there is love. Look not below,

Lest aught disturb the silver flow

Of harmonies of love! Awake!

Awake for love’s own solar sake!

Diverse devotion we divide

From the one overflowing tide.

Despise this fact! So lone and far

Lies the poor garter, that I gaze

Thither; it casts no vivid rays.

But hither? I behold the star!

XXIV

Now your grave eyes are filled with tears;

Your hands are trembling in my own;

The slow voice falls upon my ears,

An undulating monotone.

Your lips are gathered up to mine:

Your bosom heaves with fearful breath;

Your scent is keen as floral wine,

Inviting me, and love, to death.

You, whom I kept, a sacred shrine,

Will fling the portals to the day;

Where shone the moon the sun shall shine,

Silver in scarlet melt away.

There is a yet a pang: they give me this

Who can; and you who could have failed?

Is it too late to extend the kiss?

Too late the goddess be unveiled?

O but the generous flower that gives

Her kisses to violent sun,

Yet none the less in ardour lives

An hour, and then her day is done.

Back from my lips, back from my breast!

I hold you as I always will,

You unprofaned and uncaressed,

Silent, majestical, and still.

Back! for I love you. Even yet

Do you not see my deepest fire

Burn through the veils and coverings set

By fatuous phantoms of desire?

Back! O I love you evermore.

But, be our bed the bridal sky!

I love you, love you. Hither, shore

Of far unstained eternity!

There we will rest. Beware! Beware!

For I am young, and you are fair.

Nay! I am old in this, you know!

Ah! heat of God! I love you so!

XXV

O what pale thoughts like gum exude

From smitten stem of tropic tree!

I talk of veils, who love the nude!

Witness the masterpieces three

Of Rodin that make possible

Life in prosaic Paris, stand

About the room, its chorus swell

From the irritating to the grand.

Shall we, who love the naked form,

The inmost truth, to ourselves fail,

Take shelter from love’s lightning-storm

Behind some humbug’s hoary veil?

Ah! were it so, love, could the flame

Of fast electric fervour flash,

Smite us through husk of form and name,

Leave of the dross a little ash,

One button of pure fusèd gold

Identical—O floral hour!

That were the bliss no eyes behold,

But Christ’s delighted bridal dower

Assuming into God the Church.

But—oh! these nudes of Rodin! I

Drag one more linnet from its perch

That sang to us, and sang a lie.

Did Rodin strip the clothes, and find

A naked truth fast underneath?

Never! Where lurks the soul and mind?

What is the body but a sheath?

Did he ply forceps, scalpel, saw,

Tear all the grace of form apart,

Intent to catch some final law

Behind the engine of the heart?

He tried not; whoso has, has failed.

So, did I pry beneath the robe,

Till stubborn will availed, nor quailed,

Intimate with naked probe?

I know the husks to strip; name, form,

Sensation, then perception, stress

Of nature thither; last, the swarm

Of honey-bees called consciousness.

These change and shape a myriad shapes.

Diverse are these, not one at all.

What gain I if my scalpel scrapes,

Turning before some final wall

Of soul? Not so, nothing is there.

The qualities are all: for this

I stop as I have stopped; intrude

No science, for I love the fair;

No wedlock, for I love the kiss;

No scalpel, for I love the nude.

And we await the deep event.

Whate’er it be, in solitude;

Silent, with ecstasy bedewed;

Content, as Rodin is content.

XXVI

I will not, and you will not. Stay!

Do you recall that night of June

When from the insufferable day

Edged out the dead volcanic moon

Solemn into midnight? You

Shown your inviolate violet eyes

Into my eyes less sad, and drew

Back from the slender witcheries

Of word and song: and silence knew

What splendour in the silence lies,

The soul drawn back into itself.

It was the deep environing

Wood that then shielded us: the elf

And fairy in an emerald ring,

And hamadryad of the trees,

And naiad of the sleepy lake,

That watched us on the mossy leas

Look on each other’s face, and take

The secret of the universe

To sleep with us: you knew, and I,

The purport of the eternal curse,

The ill design of destiny.

You know, and I, O living head

Of love! the things that were not said.

XXVII

Do you recall? Could I forget?

How once the full moon shone above,

Over the houses, and we let

Loose rein upon the steeds of love?

How kisses fled to kisses, rain

Of fiery dew upon the soul

Kindled, till ecstasy was pain;

Desire, delight: and swift control

Leapt from the lightning, as the cloud

Disparted, rended, from us twain,

And we were one: the aerial shroud

Closed on us, shall not lift again

For aught we do: O glamour grown

Inseparable and alone!

And then we knew as now the tune

Our lives were set to, and sang back

Across the sky toward the moon

Into the cloud’s dissolving wrack,

Vanished for ever. And we found

Coprolite less than chrysolite,

Flowers fairer than their food, the ground;

We knew our destiny, saw how

Man’s fate is written on his brow,

And how our love throughout was hewn

And masked and moulded by the moon.

XXVIII

And who is then the moon? Bend close,

And clothe me in a silken kiss,

And I will whisper to my rose

The secret name of Artemis.

Words were not needed then: to-day

Must I begin what never I thought

To do: mould flowers in common clay?

Mud casket of mere words is nought,

When by love’s miracle we guess

What either always thinketh. Yes?

XXIX

So, love, not thus for you and me!

And if I am man, no more, expect

I shall remain so, till, maybe,

The anatomist, old Time, dissect

Me, nerve from flesh, and bone from bone,

And raise me spiritual, changed

In all but love for you, my own;

The little matter rearranged,

The little mind refigured. This

Alone I hope or think to keep:—

The love I bear you, and the kiss

Too soft to call the breath of sleep.

And, if you are woman, even there

I do decline: we stand above.

I ask not, and will take no share

With you in what mankind call love.

We know each other: you and I

Have nought to do with lesser things.

With them—’tis chance or destiny:

With us, we should but burn our wings.

We love, and keep ourselves apart:

Mouth unto mouth, heart unto heart,

Thus ever, never otherwise.

The soul is out of me, and swings

In desperate and strange surmise

About the inmost heart of things.

This is all strange: but is not life,

Death, all, most strange, not to be told,

Not to be understood by strife

Of brain, nor bought for gleaming gold,

Nor known by aught but love? And love

Far from resolving soul to sense,

Stands isolated and above

Immaculate, alone, intense,

Concentrate on itself. But should

The lesser leave me, as it might;

The lesser never touch you; would

Your will be one with my delight?

Leave all the thoughts and miseries!

Invade the glowing fields of sun!

Cross bleak inhospitable seas,

Until this hour be past and done,

And we in some congenial clime

Are then reborn, where danger’s nought

To mock the old Parisian time

When fear was still the child of thought!

So we could love, and love, and fate

Never clang brutal on the gong,

And lunch, man-eating tiger, wait

Crouched in the jungles of my song;

My gaze be steadfast on the star

And never to the garter glide,

And I on rapture’s nenuphar

Sit Buddha-like above the tide.

XXX

O bluebell of the inmost wood,

Before whose beauty I abase

My head, and bind my burning blood,

And hide within the moss my face,

I would not so—or not for that

Would so: the gods knew well to save

The mountain summit from the flat,

Youth’s laughter from its earlier grave.

It is a better love, exists

Only because of these below it:

Mountains loom grander in the mists:

The lover’s foolish to the poet.

I know. Far better strive and earn

The rest you give me than remain

Ever upon the heights that burn

Sunward, and quite forget the plain.

Beauteous and bodiless we are;

Rapture is our inheritance;

You shine, an everlasting star,

I, the rough nebula: but whence,

Whither, we know not. But we know

That if our joy were always so

We might not know it. Strange indeed

This earth where all is paradox,

Pushed to the truth: what lies succeed

When every truth essential mocks

Its truth in figure of a phrase?

How should I care for this, and tire

Body by will to sing thy praise,

Who take this lute, throw down the lyre

As I have done to-day, to win

No guerdon differing from the toil,

Were that accomplished: pain and sin

Are needed for the counterfoil

Of joy and love: if only so

All men had these in keen excess

Those were forgotten: indigo

Is amber’s shadow, but—confess

For all men but ourselves the tint

Of all the earth is dull and black!

Only some glints of love bestow

The knowledge of what meteor wrack

Trails pestilence across the sky.

But we are other—you and I!

So shall we live in deep content,

Unchanging bliss, despise them still

Groping on isle and continent

Wreathed in the mesh of woe and ill?

Ah! Zeus! we will not: be the law

Of uttermost compassion ours!

Our snows it shall not come to thaw,

Nor burn the roses from our bowers.

XXXI

Ay! There’s a law! For this recede,

Hide with me in the deepest caves

Of some volcanic island; bleed

Our hearts out by the ambient waves

Of Coromandel; live alone,

Hermits of love and pity, far

Where tumbled banks of ice are thrown,

Watched by yon solitary star,

Sirius; there to work together

In sorrow and in joy but one,

In black inhospitable weather,

Or fronting the Numidian sun,

Equally minded; till the hour

Strike of release, and we obtain

The passionless and holy power,

Making us masters over pain,

And lords of peace: the rays of light

We fling to the awakening globe;

The cavern of the eremite

Shall glow with inmost fire, a robe

Of diamond energy, shall flash

Even to the confines of wide space;

Comets their tails in fury lash

To look on our irradiate face.

And we will heal them. Dragon men

And serpent women, worm and clod,

Shall rise and look upon us then,

And know us to be very God,

Finding a saviour in the sight

Of power attaining unto peace,

And meditation’s virgin might

Pregnant with twins—love and release.

Are you not ready? Let us leave

This little Paris to its fate!

Our friends a little while may grieve,

And then forget: but we, elate,

Live in a larger air: awake,

Compassion in the Halls of Truth!

Disdain love for love’s very sake!

Take all our beauty, strength, and youth,

And melt them in the crucible

To that quintessence at whose gleam

Gold shudders and grows dull; expel

The final dross by intimate steam

Of glowing truth, our lunar light!

Are you not ready? Who would stay?

Arise, O Queen, O Queen of Night!

Arise, and leave the little day!

XXXII

Lady, awake the dread abyss

Of knowledge in impassioned eyes!

Fathom the gulphs of awful bliss

With the poised plummet of a kiss!

Love hath the arcanum of the wise;

Love is the elixir, love the stone;

The rosy tincture shall arise

Out of its shadowy cadences.

Love is the Work, and love alone

Rewards the ingenious alchemist.

Chaste fervours chastely overthrown

Awake the infinite monotone.

So, Lady, if thy lips I kissed;

So, lady, if in eyes of steel

I read the steady secret, wist

Of no gray ghosts moulded of mist;

I did not bid my purpose kneel,

Nor thine retire: I probe the scar

Of self, the goddess keen and real

Supreme within the naked wheel

Of sun and moon and star and star,

And find her but the ambient coil,

Imagination’s avatar,

A Buddha on his nenuphar

Elaborate of Indian toil;

A mockery of a self; outrun

Its days and dreams, its strength and spoil,

As runs the conquering counterfoil.

Thou art not; thou the moon and sun,

Thou the sole star in trackless night,

The unguessed spaces one by one

That mask their Sphinx, the horizon:

Thou, these; and one above them, light,

Light of the inmost heaven and hell:—

Art changed and fallen and lost to sight,

Who wast as waters of delight.

And I, who am not, know thee well

Who art not: then the chain divides

From love-enlightened limbs, and swell

The choral cries unutterable.

Out of the salt, out of the tides,

The sea, whose drink is death by thirst.

The triumph anthem overrides

The ocean’s lamentable sides,

And we are done with life: accurst

Who linger; lost who find; but we

Follow the gold wake of the first

Who found in losing; who reversed

The dictates of eternity.

Lo! in steep meditation hearsed,

Coffined in knowledge, fast we flee

Unto the island from the sea.

XXXIII

The note of the silence is changed; the quarrel is over

That rather endeared than estranged: lover to lover

Flows in the infinite river of knowledge and peace:

Not a ripple or eddy or quiver: the monitors cease

That were eager to warn, to awaken: a sleep is opposed,

And the leaves of the rose wind-shaken are curled and closed;

Gone down in the glare of the sun; and the twilight perfumes

Steal soft in the wake of the One that abides in the glooms.

Walking he is, and slowly; thoughtful he seems,

Pure and happy and holy; as one would who dreams

In the day-time of deep delights no kin to the day,

But a flower new-born of the night’s in Hecate’s way.

Love is his name, and he bears the ill quiver no more.

He has aged as we all, and despairs; but the lady who bore

Him, Eros, to ruin the ages, has softened at heart;

He is tamed by the art of the sages, the magical art.

No longer he burns and blisters, consumes and corrodes;

He hath Muses nine for sisters; the holy abodes

Of the maiden are open to him, for his wrath is grown still;

His eyes with weeping are dim; he hath changed his will.

We know him; and Venus sinks, a star in the West;

A star in the even, that thinks it shall fall into rest.

Let it be so, then! Arise, O moon of the lyrical spears!

Huntress, O Artemis wise, be upon him who hears!

I have heard thy clear voice in the moon; I have borne it afar;

I have tuned it to many a tune; thou hast showed me a star,

And the star thou hast showed me I follow through uttermost night.

I have shaken my spear at Apollo; his ruinous might

I have mocked, I have mastered. All hail to the Star of Delight

That is tender and fervid and frail, and avails me aright!

Hail to thee, symbol of love, assurance and promise of peace!

Stand fast in the skies above, till the skies are abolished and cease!

And for me, may I never forget how things came well as they are!

It was long I had wandered yet ere my eyes found out the star.

Be silent, love, and abide; the wanton strings must go

To the vain tumultuous tide of the spirit’s overflow.

I sing and sing to the world; then silence soon

Be about us clasped and furled in the light of the moon.

Forget not, never forget the terrible song I have sung;

How the eager fingers fret the lute, and loose the tongue

Tinkles delicate things, faint thoughts of a futile past—

We are past on eagle wings, and the silence is here at last.

The last low wail of the lyre, be it soft with a tear

For the children of earth and fire that have brought us here.

Give praise, O masterful maid, to Nina, and all as they die!

The moon makes blackest of shade; the star’s in the swarthiest sky.

Be silent, O radiant martyr! Let the world fade slowly afar!

But—had it not been for the Garter, I might never have seen the Star.

ON ΟϒΝ ΑΓΝΟΩΝ ΕϒΣΕΒΕΙΣ

TOϒTON ΕΓΩ ΡΟΔΟΣ ΚΑΤΑΓΓΕΛΛΩ ΣΟΙ

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TURNBULL AND SPEARS,

EDINBURGH