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THE GIANT'S THUMB
This volume belongs to me, Aleister Crowley. It was stolen from the table by my bed by the thief Norman Mudd, and has since passed through several larcenous hands. It belongs to me.
Aleister Crowley
To Maud Allan
Spring, smiling, breathes the zephyrs of her feet, For all her body is the soul of Spring; And all the life of Nature, set aswing, Glows Pentecostal to the Paraclete: Then, savage glories ravishing the sweet, Her serpent arms make sigils menacing The sacramental death of some strange king. Now Seb enkindles her, and now Nuith! Even as the glass wherein God sees His face She changes momently from grace to grace A flower, a moon, a tree, a bird, a breeze, A beast—oh let me swoon amazed, enrapt While in her beauty my life's spindle, snapped May blot my being in Eternity's.
I.B.M. O.T.O. I.N.R.I.
TO
THE MOST HOLY KING OF
THE WHOLE EARTH
MOST REVEREND FATHER IN THE LORD
OF THE GNOSTIC CATHOLIC CHURCH
FRATER SUPERIOR
O.H.O. [Theodor Reuss]
OF THE RELIGIOUS AND MILITARY
ORDEER OF THE TEMPLE
ORIENTAL AND OCCIDENTAL
I PROUDLY AND DUTIFULLY DEDICATE
THIS BOOK
THE
GIANT'S THUMB
BY ALEISTER CROWLEY
"By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes."
NEW YORK
MITCHELL KENNERLEY
32 WEST 58TH STREET
1915
PRINTED AT THE BALLANTYNE PRESS LONDON ENGLAND
THE GIANT'S THUMB
Fee Fo Fi Fum! The hour has come. Boom Boom Ratata Rataplan! I smell the blood of a British man (Born in a slum, bred by a fool, Slaved in a factory, starved in a school) That turns to water as he sees With loosened loins and shaking knees The portent. It shall strike him dumb, The giant's thumb.
Fee Fo Fi Fum! The Man is come. (Boom Boom Ratata Rataplan!) The son of Artemis, son of Pan. See him strong and subtle and wise, Lustiest life in a land of lies, Lion and snake, devil and god, With his mother's comb and his father's rod— Praise ye loud on fife and drum The giant's thumb!
Fee Fo Fi Fum! The doom is come. Boom Boom Ratata Rataplan! I winnow the corn with a fiery fan. I thrust my thumb in your sodden age. I make my print on your puleying page. Aanaemic louts, leucorhoeic cluts, Give way, give way to gods with guts! The Oriflamme! The fascinum! The giant's thumb!
Fee Fo Fi Fum! The dawn is come. Boom Boom Ratata Rataplan! The Fiery Cross from clan to clan! Rise, thou sun, on love and war! Παμϕαγ εϕαλλε, παγγευετωρ ! [Pamphag, phalle, paggenetor!] Fled are the peace-phantasmogoria! Dead as Queen Anne is Queen Victoria! Pan puts forth his purple plum, The giant's thumb!
FOREWORD
All delicate days and pleasant, all spirits and sorrows are cast Far out with the foam of the present that sweeps to the surf of the past: Where beyond the extreme sea-wall, and between the remote sea-gates, Waste water washes, and tall ships founder, and deep death waits: Where, mighty with deepening sides, clad about with the seas as with wings, And impelled of invisible tides, and fulfilled of unspeakable things, White-eyed and poisonous-finned, shark-toothed and serpentine-curled, Rolls, under the whitening wind of the future, the wave of the world.
It is eleven of the clock on the night of August 28, in the 1914th year of the Christian Era, and the news of the annihilation of the British Army has not yet reached London. It will come.[1]
The cause is cant and hypocrisy, and the cause of the War was cant and hypocrisy, the strange, the pathetic, the craven determination to admit no fact for truth which all the men of science and all the poets of the reign of Queen Victoria did so little to shake. The demonstrations of Darwin and the sonorities of Swinburne reached only the thinking classes, if one may use so plural a noun for the remnant that refused to bow the knee to the Baal of Respectability and the Golden Calf of Commercialism.
Entrenched in the morass of bibliolatry, crouching in the bastions of Fort Grundy, the old Guard of Victorianism died and did not surrender. But as the Old Testament God fell before Paine and Ingersoll, as the sanguine and sacrificial Christ was emasculated by Renan and Edwin Arnold, the ruin of orthodoxy left even the manhood of Puritanism eunuch. Havelock with his bloody sword blowing 14,000 Sepoy prisoners from the muzzles of his guns in a morning became no longer thinkable. Hypocrisy surpassed itself, denounced its own virtues for vices. As the Goddess Reason once presided in Paris over panic, so the neuter deity Progress was worshipped by all those whom sloth, ease, security, prosperity had rotted. And the attendant demon-in-chief, Broken-Reed-in-Waiting to Its Majesty, was Humanitarianism.
We had Progressed. Lady Pyjama Noisette had a headache to the tune of a paragraph—10 lines. Sandsugar v. Sandsugar and Pintpot—a column. A piddling little quack doctor poisons his bitch of a wife and runs off with his fool of a typist—the business of the world is suspended until he is cinematographically hanged.
A prominent writer calls attention to himself by the device of calling attention to the pangs of slaughtered oxen; another affirms his brotherhood with the Chicago Pig. Countless thousands turn Vegetarian, and then quarrel as to whether it is or is not True Vegetarianism to eat eggs. The war between the Fruitarians and the Nut-foodists nearly came to a cross word! I knew a “man” who refused to eat bread because it was a fermented drink! A friend of mine knew an Anarchist who refused cocoa because it excited his animal passions!
“And all the while the shark in southern seas!”
as the authoress of The Placid Pug so tragically counters.
For there were one or two reprobates who happened to have read History, and to have observed Humanity.
Of these Nietzsche was the chief. But even in England, independently of him, and ignorant of his teaching, was found a man who actually endeavoured—and, is still endeavouring[2]—to found a New Religion on such texts as these:
This is plain speaking; this is “blasphemy” and “immorality” if ever such were spoken.
I quote it in preference to Nietzsche, not only because Nietzsche has penetrated from Prussia to Pimlico, and is quoted in Streatham as in Stuttgart, but also because it is simpler than Nietzsche, because there is no possibility of misinterpreting the doctrine (were I dowered with a double portion of the Spirit of Escobar), because it is not German or Slavonic but universal, the battle-cry of what may yet become a new and terrible theocracy. Its adherents have hitherto been secret; to-day they surely lift their heads; to-morrow they may reap the reward of having thought ten years ago what England thinks this year.
It is only two months since even the saner sections of the people were disputing hotly as to whether boxing is “brutal”; and this month no man of sense but admits that little children may lawfully be pitched into blazing cottages before their mothers’ eyes. And that is play to what may come. Will not human flesh be bought and sold in the markets before the war and its attendant revolutions are over? Is there any man bold enough to call such things “impossible,” to invoke those fallen fishy gods “Progress” and “Civilization” and “The Higher Awakening of the Ethical Instincts of man?”
Is there any man who still shuts his eyes to the plain fact that homo sapiens is but a primate, cousin of the gorilla, with a brain over-developed to think abominations, and a larynx evolved to aid their execution, a creature whose prime pangs are hunger, lust, and hate, and his fundamental solaces rape, robbery, and murder? I laughed with open throat at the “atrocity” Press Campaigns in the Balkan War. “The half-civilized peoples of the Near East!” Is the present war any less prolific of such stories when the compatriots of Tolstoi, and Gorky, and Goethe, and Anatole France, and Shelley are at war? And are the stories true? True or false in detail, I knew them true in essence, and I knew also that the primmest old maid in Dorchester whose palsied hands dropped her knitting as she read of them was horrified because, although she did not know it, and could never be brought to know it, those atrocities were in her blood from everlasting. “There, but for the Grace of God, goes Charles Baxter” was the wisest remark that ever came from a fool’s lips. And it is because we have persuaded ourselves bitterly and obstinately, against the deeper knowledge that is instinct in every organism, that these things cannot happen, that we have lost the manhood that could have prevented them. Some there are so priggishly purblind that fact itself, naked and bleeding at their thresholds, battering on the gates of their ears with the Ram of actuality, fails to force those waxed-up tympana. When the nations were already at each other’s throats, when men had seen their brothers blown to atoms before their eyes, drilled through with nickel and lead, slashed and gashed with steel, ridden down beneath the hoofs of the horses,[3] we heard that President Wilson had offered to arbitrate! To arbitrate, when the diplomatic and economic pressure of a decade, and the consciousness of ineradicable race-hatred since time began, and clan tore clan with flint, had forced the Boar of Germany to turn at last upon the Borzoi and the Bulldog, to lash out with tush and hoof at the invisible pack of hounds that closed upon him.
And we are still babbling of the Cause of Liberty, and the Banner of the Democracies, and the Truth, and the Righteousness, and the Justice, and the Equality, and the Humanity, and the Progress, when every man that is not stultified beyond the surgery of war by his own hypocrisies, knows well that the battle is a battle of over-population, the hæmorrhage of a plethora, and that its terms are merely “My life or yours!”—”The hammer or the anvil?”
The Chinese (till Europe infected them) murdered all but a few selected female infants, and consequently lived in peace and prosperity for two thousand years. Civilization and the arts flourished: famine was rare, and floods and plague were welcomed as a purge.[4] Our squeamishness has forbidden us to take this elementary precaution, this restraint imposed on prosperity by wisdom; and where are our civilization, our prosperity, our liberty, our Progress? In fifty years will there remain so many monuments of what we were two months ago as Egypt has of its Pharaohs, Greece of its Republics, Rome of its Cæsars? We have used bricks and iron for stone and brass, pulp for papyrus and palm-leaf, rhetoric for fact, pharisaism for publicanism, and our era will perish ere our own bones rot![5]
We have pretended[6] that there was no such thing as sex, no such thing as venereal disease, that our publicists were True Believers in Christianity, that our women were pure and our men brave; we have howled down every man who dared to hint the truth: we have sowed the wind of pious phrases, and we must reap the whirlwind of war. It has been the same in every drawer of our cupboard—and now the skeleton is out. Swinburne’s prophecy has come true; we must amend him to read:
“They are past, and their places are taken, The gods and the priests that are pure.”
We have a credit system which when analysed meant that we were all pretending to be rich, a social system in which we all pretended to be esquires at the least. We had Dukes who never led, Marquesses with no marches to ward, Knights who could barely sit a donkey; we called our slattern slaves lady helps, our prostitutes soiled doves, our grumbling mumbling fumbling politicians statesmen.
And it is gone like a ghost—and an unclean spirit sure it was that haunted us.
And if I write for England, who will read? As if, when moons of Ramazan recede, Some fatuous angel-porter should deposit His perfect wine within the privy closet! “What do they know, who only England know?” Only what England paints its face to show. Love mummied and relabelled “chaste affection,” And lust excused as “natural selection”.
* * * * *
Caligula upbraids the cruel cabby, And Nero birches choir-boys in the Abbey; Semiramis sand-papered to a simper, And Clytemnæstra whittled to a whimper! The austerities of Loyola? to seek! But—let us have a “self-denial week”! The raptures of Teresa are hysteric; But—let us giggle at some fulsome cleric! “The age refines! You lag behind.” God knows! Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
* * * * *
To call forced labour slavery is rude, “Terminological inexactitude.” This from the masters of the winds and waves Whose cotton-mills are crammed with British slaves! Men pass their nights with German-Jewish whores, Their days in keeping “aliens” from our shores. They turn their eyes up at a Gautier’s tale, And run a maisonette in Maida Vale.
* * * * *
Your titles—oh! how proud you are to wear them? —What about “homo quatuor literarum?” The puissant all their time to vice devote; The impotent (contented) pay to gloat. The strumpet’s carwheels splash the starving maiden In Piccadilly, deadlier than Aden. “England expects a man to do his duty.” He calls truth lies, and sneers at youth and beauty, Pays cash for love and fancies he has won it— Duty means church, where he thanks God he’s done it!
I wish I could quote the whole poem;[7] but it may need another six months before prudery has a final “seizure.”[8]
It is this prudery which has fought Nietzsche. In its last ditch it is still pretending that Nietzsche, who hated the Germans, was a German. “The Anglo-Nietzschean War!” True it is, the Germans were the only people who had the common sense, the clear sight, the ability to face, grasp and use the facts which Nietzsche thundered to the planet. Had England done so, she would have had two million men always under arms, and Germany must have surrendered without a blow, could never have dared even this desperate dash, this madness which comes of pushing sanity to the wall, and bidding it fight for its life. Nor could I write that the British army: has been, is being, or is about to be annihilated.
Are we fighting to preserve peace, to hold the balance of power, to save civilization, to relieve the burden of armaments, to smash the tyranny of militarism, to sentinel liberty?
Then we should have had an army equal to Germany’s, and our fleet should have destroyed hers while we were three to one. You must fight fire with fire. Shelley’s “Laon and Cythna” and his “Masque of Anarchy,” Tolstoi and the whole school of non-resistance, where are they now? The “big blonde beast” who visits women with a whip under his arm has not been impressed with the moral superiority of the conquered. He has robbed them and enslaved them and murdered them, he has ravished their women and tossed their children on his bayonets, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen. Thus spake Zarathustra.
Oh rapture! Font of Medea! Baptism of Rejuvenation! The old world is bathed again in blood; its limbs glow with the crimson; it is the angry sunrise of a new æon, and Apollo shakes himself clear of the dawn-mists, Nietzsche his morning star!
The grey breaks to gold.
Is it not written in the Seventh Incantation of the Book of LIBER VII: (that is of Lapis Lazuli) by Him that is I:—
“The forest of the spears of the Most High is called Night, and Hades, and the Day of Wrath; but I am His captain, and I bear His cup.
“Fear me not with my spearmen! They shall slay the demons with their petty prongs. Ye shall be free.
“Ah, slaves! ye will not—ye know not how to will.
“Yet the music of my spears shall be a song of freedom.”
“O my God, but the love in Me bursts over the bonds of Space and Time; my love is split among them that love not love.
“My wine is poured out for them that never tasted wine.
“The fumes thereof shall intoxicate them, and the vigour of my love shall breed mighty children from their maidens.”
Is not Earth purged? Is not the Pillar established in the Void? Παμφαγε, Παγγενετωρ! Thou art arisen! Is there not an end of the anæmia of the Humanitarian, and the hysteria of the Suffragist, and the stark cunning lunacy of the Cubist-Futurist-Vorticist-Parallelipipedist-Feminist, and all the onanism of the Knut and the Flapper?
Will not man arise again, and hunt and fight and master his mate, and will not woman return to her cooking and her housewifery and the breeding of lusty children to her man? And if Nietzsche be the dawn-star, shall there be no son of man to be a Sun of men?
Had we no prophet? Had we no poet, O all ye weary criticasters of the prostitute-prude Press?
Was there not one to put into the mouth of his king-priest-magus, baffled by fate in the hour of the birth of Christianity, this prophecy of the Antichrist[9]—
Listen!
“I will away Into the mystic palaces of Pan; Hidden from day, Hidden from Man, Awaiting there the coming of the Sphinx Whose genius drinks The poison of this pestilence, and saves The world from all its lords and slaves. Ho! for his chariot-wheels that whirl afar! His hawk’s eye flashing through the silver star! Upon the heights his standard shall he plant, Free, equal, passionate, pagan, dominant, Mystic, indomitable, self-controlled, The red rose glowing on the cross of gold. . .
Yea! I will wait throughout the centuries Of the universal man-disease Until that morn of his Titanic birth. . . The Saviour of the Earth!”
* * * * *
It is nine years—nearly ten—since I wrote this Essay—a spasm of royal Rapture enkindled by the Spark struck from the steel of the Sword by the Flint of Fate—at the word War my Soul leapt singing unto the Sunlight. My life for England, and to win the World! So, die I did, not once but many and many a time in these strange years. No stranger years were ever written upon the scroll of Thoth! All values have changed & changed and changed again; dark and tempestuous have rolled the thunderclouds of Fact, and the Föhn of abject Fear has blown out almost every lamp of Truth, and whistles louder lies than ever was known; but the Earth rolls Sunward, Light pierces, Night is daunted, and her ministers are understood to have been shadow-phantoms imagined by Ignorance and Superstition. “Do what thou wilt!” has been pro-claimed to many a million; and myself, the Prophet of that Law, made manifest to men as being indeed The Great Wild Beast. Already they have learnt to hate, fear, shun, and drive me forth: the hour is even now at hand when “the keen and the proud, the royal and the lofty” begin to accept my Law as the touchstone of Kingship, to come to me, saying: We “worship thy name, foursquare, mystic, wonderful, the number of the man”—“blessing and worship to the prophet of the lovely Star”. For I am Man himself, the avatar of his Solar and Royal essence: Light, Life, Love, Liberty being the functions of my true Self, whose Word is Θελημα. For this is “The end of the hiding of Hadit”, the realization in consciousness of his bornless Sovereignty, that is the opening of the Aeon of the Crowned and Conquering Child for every Man that Will; and the manifest token of his lordship is his fearless frankness in adherence to my Law, his Oath of Fealty to me as ‘the priest of the princes’, the Prophet in whose Word is his Energy & his Authority, The Beast of whose Solar Substance he shall build the Temple of deathless and impregnable Beauty, to the Child his God and King. For his light is in me &its red flame is as a sword in my hand to push His order: so that tome His Holy Chosen One, from whom all Lordship is derived, shouldst every Lord and King pay tribute of Truth, ranging himself beneath my Banner of Love under Will, as Warrior Lawgiver of the Hosts of Light.
1) P. S. It came; and was censored. But England will yet find out. P. P. S. It was not until after Victory had been proclaimed that men began to realize that it was Defeat. For the corruption of Christianity made them cowards even in conquest, refusing to assume the responsibility of Mastership. 2) P. S. Dec. 1923 E. V. He has perdured with dogged dauntlessness through distress and disaster of every kind: and his Truth is subtly infiltrating the whole Body of the World’s Thought, Every year marks an advance—irrefutable & automatic—towards acceptation. The quotations are from Liber AL the "Book of the Law". Vide The Equinox I VII & X et al. 3) Note the date of writing. The use of Poison Gas was still to come; so were the cold-blooded murders of Edith Cavell, Mata Hari, Sir Roger Casement and the Dublin Martyrs, Erskine Childers, and countless others. 4) P. S. The introduction of Idealism, which left the True Will of the Mongol out of account, has resulted in unrest and anarchy. 5) Great achievements of permanent value (other than utilitarian) are evidence of a surplus of wealth & energy. The Temples and Tombs of Egypt and Hindostan; the Dagobas & Pagodas of China, Cambodia, Burma, & Ceylon; the monuments of Assyria, Greece, and Italy; the Masjid of Islam; the Cathedrals, Churches, & Chapels of Initiated Solar-Phallic Mystagogues of the Dark Ages: none such are possible since Power has passed from Prince, Prophet, & Priest to the mindless mass with neither Blood, Insight, nor Control of the Secret Energy of the Universe. 6) If every one ceases to call a spade a spade, the term “agricultural implement” soon becomes “bad form.” It has been universally agreed to avoid all reference to the phallus, and so we find sections of society to be horrified at the word “trousers. “Consent to this, and the prude will soon find a new and even remoter object to stir his slime. 7) "The World’s Tragedy," Preface. 8) P. S. The apparent ‘Victory’ has made it possible for publicists to make a last desperate attempt to conceal the fact of the practically universal collapse of the pretense that Christianity survives—or ever existed, in any real sense, outside the stews & shambles of serfdom. 9) "The World’s Tragedy": concluding passage.
CONTENTS
THE BLIND PROPHET THE SABBATH THE PILGRIM THREE POEMS FOR JANE CHERON: THE WAIF OF OCEANUS THE SNOW MAIDEN JEANNE ADONIS: AN ALLEGORY INDEPENDENCE A BIRTHDAY TO LAYLAH LONG ODDS LA FOIRE STEPNEY SORITES LINES TO A YOUNG LADY VIOLINIST THE TITANIC THRENODY AT SEA DUMB! ATHANASIUS CONTRA DECANUM THE SHIP: A MYSTERY PLAY THE DISCIPLES RETURN THE FOUR WINDS BOO TO BUDDHA! HYMN TO SATAN THE MESSAGE OF THŪBA MLEEN AT NORJ—AN—NŪS ΛΙΝΟΣΙΣΙΔΟΣ PAN TO ARTEMIS THE INTERPRETER THE BUDDHIST THE THIEF-TAKER ADELA A SONG OF SHIVA THE WELL THE ALCHEMIST'S HYMN CRUSADERS' CHRISTMAS TWO SONGS OF THE CRUSADERS THE NYMPH OF THE WELL THE SARACEN GIRL'S SONG THE GHOST THE ROYAL LOVER SPRING SONG THE NORTHMAN'S SONG LAGER HYMN OF THE FJORD-DWELLERS TWO SOLDIERS' SONGS THE SACRED MOUND D. T. AT SOUSSE AVANT APRÉS RHEIMS THE SEVENFOLD SACRAMENT ON THE EDGE OF THE DESERT A PARAPHRASE OF THE HIEROGLYPHS UPON THE OBVERSE OF THE STÉLÉ OF REVEALING A PARAPHRASE OF THE HIEROGLYPHS OF THE ELEVEN LINES UPON THE REVERSE OF THE STÉLÉ SIDERA VERTICE PRAYER AT SUNSET THE TENT VILLON'S APOLOGY NEKAM ADONAI! THE HAPPY MAN RENUNCIATION THE UNCONQUERABLE TSAR THE TYLER FOEDUS CASTITATIS A NEW MOON IN THE ORCHARD A MOSCOW NIGHT'S ENTERTAINMENT EUGENICS DOLOROSA IRIS VIOLET TWO BIRTHDAYS ULTRA VIRES MARIE THE FUN OF THE FAIR THE CITY OF GOD MORPHIA AD SPIRITUM SANCTUM REASONER AND RIMER EPIGRAM HYMN TO PAN TO LAYLAH EIGHT AND TWENTY ENGLAND STAND FAST COLOPHON. CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
THE BLIND PROPHET
A BALLET
The curtain rises upon an empty stage. The acolytes enter from opposite sides of the stage and, meeting before the altar, bow low and interchange mystic signs of recognition.
Then they go to the obelisks and fall upon their knees adoring them.
The White Acolyte Hail! the celestial Harbours above!
The Black Acolyte Hail! the terrestrial Palace of love!
The White Acolyte From term unto term The pillars are firm. Subtly wrought, They support The blue dome—
The Black Acolyte The gods' home!
The White Acolyte On their summits repose All the worlds—
The Black Acolyte The gods' rose.
The White Acolyte Thou hast heard The great word?
The Black Acolyte It is spoken. Proclaim The might of the Name! Should one utter that, Would the temple be broken, The pillars fall flat, The word be unspoken, The lights be extinct, The music be dumb, The circle unlinked, The acolytes numb, The altar defiled, The sacrament trod Underfoot by the wild Despisers of God!
The White Acolyte This was the curse That I heard half-muttered.
The Black Acolyte May it never be uttered! Or the universe And all that we cherish Would utterly perish! [A solemn call is uttered by a single flute and a single violin.
The Acolytes It is time: Let us go, To the flow Of the rime! [The Acolytes go out L. and return, leading the Blind Prophet between them.
The Prophet Lead me to the holy place! Trace the circle widdershins! Light the incense! Set the pace To the flutes and violins!
The Musicians Kill! kill! Life is shrill! Still! still! Word and will! Flame! flame! Speak the name! Trill! trill! Thrill! thrill! I acclaim the shame! I have heard the word! Fulfil the will!
The Prophet Bid the virgins veil the bride! Lead her forth, a shower of spray, A flower of foam upon the tide, A fleece of cloud upon the day! So my sightless eyes may see In the transcendental trance The virgin of eternity Lead the demi-gods to dance. Has the Tree of Life its root In the soul or in the skin? Is it God, or is it brute, That comes mystically in For the doves within the flute, The eagles on the violin? Ah! The perfume's coiling tresses Curl like veils upon the limbs Of the dancer that caresses With her flying feet the hymns That flow and ripple in the air, Bathing all the doves of prayer!
The Musicians Lingering, low, fingering slow, The tingling bows of the violins go. Trembling, twittering, dissembling, The lips of the flute-players wander Over the stops, fiercer and fonder Than scorpions that writhe and curl In the fiery breast of an Arab girl! [The dancers issue from beyond the veil.
The Prophet Sway like the lilies, gentle girls! Like lilies glimmer! Furl yourselves as the lily furls Its radiance dimmer! Curl as the lily-petal curls, Subtler and slimmer! Unfold your ranks and waft yourselves apart, That I may guess what pearl is at the heart, What dewdrop glistens on the crown gold-wrought Within the chalice of your coiled cohort!
The Musicians The flutes coo. It is the voice Of love in spring, At dawn, in dew; And piercing through Those low loves that rejoice, Wails in the violin that supreme string Of passion, that is more akin To death than love, that shrieking sin Whose teeth tear passion's tortured skin And drink love's blood, and rage within Black bowels of lust to win, to win Some crown of thorns incarnadine, Some cross whereof to fashion Some newer, truer fashion Than even the agony of the violin!
The Prophet Yes! like a careless breeze, the close caress Expands with a sob; the virgins wheel; there glows In the midst a mystical rose! [The dancers unfold, and their Queen appears. O musical ministress Of the dancing violin! In an emerald spangled skin, Hooded with harvest hair Close-coiled; her serpent eyes Hold ineffable sorceries! Slender and tall, and straight is she As an almond-tree Blest by an hermit! Her serpent eyes Hold ineffable sorceries! Slow she sways; her white arms ripple From rosy finger to rosy nipple, Ripple and flow like the melody Of the flutes and the violins. And! I see! I see—she smiles on me The heart of a million sins, Each keener than death! Her serpent eyes Hold ineffable sorceries.
The Musicians Hush! Hush! the young fleet flush. The marble's ablush. The music moves trilling, Like wolves at the killing, Moaning and shrilling, And clear as the throb in the throat of a thrush! Rustling they sway Like a forest of rush In the storm, and away! Away! blow the blossoms Of virgin bosoms On the sob of the wind Of the violins, That bind and unbind Their scarlet sins On the brows of the world. Hush! they are curled In the rapture of reaping The flowers that unfurled When the gardeners were sleeping In the breeze-swayed bowers Of the Lord of the Flowers! The marble! The temple's ablaze and ablush. Hush! Hush! softer crush The grape on the palate, the flower on the blossom, The dream on the sleeper, the bride on the bosom!
The Prophet Will she not deign, being drawn Into the blush of dawn. To yield the promise, to unveil The Lady of bliss and bale?
I am old and blind; my vision Hath the seer in derision. I would set my lips between Those rose-tipped moons, just there Where the deciduous green Leaves the pearly rapture bare, With its blue veins like rivulets Jewelled with gentians and violets, Wandering through fields of corn, Under the first kiss of the morn In still and shimmering air!
The Queen of the Dancers No! No! the weird is woe. The law is this, most surely this! That who hath seen may never kiss. The soul is at war with the flesh and the mind. Life is dumb, and love is blind.
The Prophet I am the prophet of the Gods. I have put these eyes out to attain To the crown of the pallid periods That pulse in the Almighty brain! I have striven all my life for this; That I might see, and still might kiss!
The Musicians Vain! Vain! Time is sane. Fain! Fain! Space is plain. Time passes once, and is not found. Space divides once, not heals the wound. Knell! Knell! the shattered spell That could not break the World of Hell. Whirl! Whirl! the wanton girl (Curve, and coil, and close, and curl!) Slips the grip as the swallow avoids The leaps of the dog; or the moon, that sails Abeam to God's invisible gales, The clumsy caress of the asteroids! Love her in memory, love her in dream, Love her in hope, or love her in faith; But all these loves are loves that seem; The worst is a ghoul, the best is a wraith; For to birth On the earth There is no power under, within, or above, That can give thee love in truth and love.
The Prophet Yet will I strive! There is nothing but this While I am alive But the dancer's kiss. If I fail in that Let the temple be broken, The pillars fall flat, The word be unspoken, The lights be extinct The music be dumb The circle be unlinked, The acolytes numb, The altar defiled The sacrament trod Under foot by the wild Despisers of God.
The Musicians No! No! Life is woe Thou dost not know How ineffably great Is the weight of Fate. Uncreate! Ultimate! Born of Hate! Brother of Woe! Despair its mate! Thou dost nor know How giant great Is the grasp of Fate.
The Dancers Vainly pursuing Impossible things, The swamp-adder wooing The lark with her wings!
The Queen of the Dancers See how I glide— Canst thou not hold me? In thine arms, at thy side— Why not enfold me?
Wisdom awaken! Never, oh never, By wile or endeavour Am I to be taken.
Will a wish or a word Charm the hawk from the air? And am I a bird To be caught in a snare?
Will a word or a wish Bring the trout from the brook And am I a fish To snap at an hook?
The Prophet Ye led me to the holy place. All ye have mocked me to my face. Now ends the age of living breath; I am sworn henchman unto death. Lead me to the obelisks That support the holy Disks! I am here; my grasp is firm, We are come unto the term. Temple, dancers, girls, musicians, Augurs, acolytes, magicians— Ruin, ruin whelm us all! Fall! [He pulls down the pillars; but the temple was not supported on them as in his blindness he supposed; and he is himself his only victim.
The Dancers Twine! twine! rose and vine. Whirl! whirl! boy and girl. Mine! mine! maid divine. Curl! curl! peach and pearl. Twist! twist! the towering trances Are not sun-kissed Like our delicate dances. Expanses Of fancies, The turn of the ankle! the wave of the wrist Enhances Romances! Twine! twine tread me a measure! The dotard is dead that disturbed our pleasure With his doubt About Souls and skins, And the quickened shoots Of pain that he tore From the heart's core Of the dreadful flutes And the terrible violins. Joy! joy! girl and boy! He is dead! let us laugh! let us dance! let us love! Leave the corpse there as it lies! we shall measure A new true dance around and above, And taste of the treasure, The torrent of pleasure! Curl! curl! peach and pearl! Mine! mine! maid divine! Whirl! whirl boy and girl! Twine! twine! rose and vine.
The Musicians Hush! hush! the young feet flush, The marble's ablush, The music moves trilling Like wolves at the killing, Moaning and shrilling, And clear as the throb in the throat of a thrush! Rustling they sway Like a forest of rush In the storm, and away! Away! blow the blossoms Of virgin bosoms On the sob of the wind Of the violins That bind and unbind Their scarlet sins On the brows of the world. Hush! they are curled In the rapture of reaping The flowers that unfurled When the gardeners were sleeping In the breeze-swayed Flowers! Of the Lord of the flowers. Hush! Hush! the young feet flush The marble. The temple's ablaze and ablush. Hush! hush! softer crush The grape on the palate, the bloom on the blossom, The dream on the sleeper, the bride on the bosom!
The Queen of the Dancers, in her prime pose [spoken without inflexion or emphasis] Now do you understand the tragedy of life?
A BALLET
[The following indicates the suggestions of the author for the production and orchestration of this ballet.]
Scene: An ancient Egyptian temple, in which, crowned by disks, stand two mighty pillars. The stage is semi-circular, and the tiers of that amphitheatre are filled as follows: Upper tiers: R., violins, which are defined as stringed instruments destined to shrill the suggestion of the vowel "i"; L., flutes, which are defined as wooden tubes destined to coo the suggestion of the vowel "o" [or "u" (oo)]. Lower tiers: R., treble chorus; L., bass chorus.
All these persons are dressed as the Priest Ani and his wife Tutu in "The Papyrus of Ani." If preferred, the stage can be arranged in exact representation of an Egyptian temple. In this case the singers and instrumentalists are arranged upon a dais.
In either case the right and left of the stage are separated by a pylon, on which hangs a veil. In the centre of the stage are two obelisks—one white, figured black; the other black, figured white. They are close together, so that a man may span them from outer edge to outer edge.
Before them is a small square altar; on it a censer. Flaming resins burn on tops of obelisks if desired.
The Blind Prophet is aged, his beard long and white; or, merely a black tuft under the chin. His robes are very wide and voluminous, scarlet embroidered with gold. He wears the panther-skin over his shoulders and the Uræus crown. He is blind. He represents the deep and broad vowel “a.”
His Two Acolytes are a fair-haired boy dressed in sky-blue robes and a negro dressed in pale yellow robes. The fair-haired boy leads an ape, and the negro has a hawk on his wrist.
The Queen of the Dancers is as described in the poem. Her dress is a tight-fitting costume of emerald sequins adorned with silver snakes. She has a silver crescent in her hair. Her arms are bare to the shoulder and her legs to the knee. She wears silver sandals. She may wear a short jewelled skirt—the apron being red, yellow, and blue; in this case these colours are repeated in her head-dress. She represents the fluent vowel “e.”
The dancers are dressed in many colours; but no dress is to be so definite and vivid as the Queen's. They wear short skirts
The curtain rises upon an empty stage. Distant music, low and solemn, broken into by (1) a single flute and (2) a single violin. At this signal the acolytes enter from opposite sides of the stage and, meeting before the altar, bow low and interchange mystic signs of recognition.
Then they go to the obelisks and fall on their knees, adoring them.
Now do you understand the tragedy of life?
CURTAIN
THE SABBATH
To A. E. Waite [Arthur Edward Waite]
Occult, forbidden lights Move in the royal rites. Diaphanous, they dance Above the souls in trance That have attained to their untold inheritance.
Above the mystic masque, Like plumes upon a casque, They wave their purple and red Above each haggard head. Thy are like gems snake-rooted, basilisks' bed.
Here were the tables set For Baal and Baphomet: Her was the altar drest With fire and Alkahest For many a holy host, for many a goodly guest.
Here was the veil, and here The sword and dagger of fear. Here was the circle traced, And here the pillar placed For Him the utterly unfathomably chaste.
Here grew the murmur grim Of the low-muttered hymn; Here sound itself caught flame From the dark drone of shame— The world reverberated the unutterable Name!
Astarte from her trance Leapt loving to the dance, Greeting as fire greets firs Her whirling worshippers. And all her joy was theirs, and all their madness hers!
Yea! thou and I that strove For mastery in love, Circling the altar stone Maze-like, with magic moan, Forthwith made that divinest destiny our own.
Throughout that violent vigil We wove the stormy sigil, Our faces ashen-lipped From our heart's blood that dripped On the armed talismans of that moon-vaulted crypt.
Then came the sombre spectre From the abyss of nectar; Yea, from the icy North Came the great vision forth, A giant breaking through the weary web of wrath.
Then, in the midst, behold That blaze of burnished gold Imperishable, set With adamant and jet; And by the obscene head we hailed him Baphomet.
Hail to the Master, hail! Lord of the Sabbath! Baal! I kiss thy feet, I kiss Thy knees—and this—and this— Till I am lifted up to the incorporeal Byss.
Till here alone exalted I gaze beneath the vaulted Forehead, within the eyes Wherein such wonder lies, The incommensurable gain, the pagan prize.
We are thy moons an suns, Thy loyal knights and nuns, Who tread the dance around Thine altar, with the sound Of death-sobs echoing through the immemorial ground.
O glee! the price to pay! Swear but our souls away! And we may gain the goal That all the wise extol— The world, the flesh, the devil, weighed against a soul.
The wind blows from the south! Crushed to that burning mouth, Lured by that lurid law, We melt within that maw; And all he fiends loose hold, and all the gods withdraw!
Upon the altar-stone We are alone—alone! In vivid blackness curled With livid lightings pearled— Sweat-drops upon God's brow when He creates a world!
Sister, the word is spoken! Sister, the spell is broken. The Sabbath torches flicker; The Sabbath heart beats quicker; We have drained the Sabbath cup of its austerest liquor.
Forsaken is the hall; Finished the festival. My witch and I are thrown Dead on the altar stone By the contemptuous god that made our soul his own.
Come! Come! we must begone. Hiss the last orison! Intone the last lament! Take the last sacrament, The extreme unction, Saviour when the soul is spent!
Come! hurry through the night, A trail of tortured flight! Eagle and pelican Become mere maid and man Till the next Sabbath — days each like leviathan!
Nay! lift the languid head! Take of this wine and bread! The vision is withdrawn; The lake calls, and the lawn; Our love shall walk abroad in the grey hours of dawn!
THE PILGRIM
At the dawn of the bout Of my life I set out For the Palace of Light. At the end of the road I have found an abode In the Tavern of Night.
Ever on! ever on! Said the day-star, and shone! Ever on! and above! Said the even-star: rest In the night on my Breast! Beyond light there is love.
But I stayed not; I feared A false witch in her weird. I went on, ever on, Till the day and the night And the love and the light Were, suddenly, gone.
Came the Voice of the Lord: “Now receive the reward Of the laughers at Life, Who, faint, have not failed; Who, weak, have not wailed: My one jewel—a wife.
“Since the ape stood erect For a sign of his sect There have only been ten. So perfect were they That their names are to-day Forgotten of men.”
I took her, and still Through the wit and the will And the way and the word And the crown of all these, By the water at ease Sings our bliss as a bird.
Together! together! The wage of the weather I liberty, light; Is loyalty, love; Is laughter, above The caprices of night.
From ocean emergent Springs splendid, assurgent, The strenuous sun. The shadows are gone, But the tune ripples on, And the word is but one.
Let all that is living Unite in thanksgiving To Heaven above, For the Heaven within, That a woman may win For a man—that is love.
At the end of the road I have found an abode In the Tavern of Night; And behold! it is one With the House of the Sun And the Palace of Light!
THREE POEMS FOR JANE CHÉRON
I
THE WAIF OF OCEANUS
To Frank Harris
She is like a flower washed up On the shore of life by the sea of luck; A strange and venomous flower, intent To prove an unguessed continent. New worlds of love in the curve of its cup! New fruits to crush, new flowers to pluck.
White waif, white champak-blosso blown From the jungle to the lost lagoon! White lily swayed by the wind of time! Grey eyes that crave the chrism of crime! Blanched face like a note on a clarion! Red mouth like the sun through simoon, typhoon!
Hurricanes howl, howl in her heart; Serpents sleep in her smile; I hear Horrible happenings long ago, Direful deeds, weirds of woe, Things beyond history and art In the tresses that tumble over her ear!
In what grim gloom did Satan get This child on what wood-nymph dishevelled? Whence was the wind that swayed the woods On their bestial beatitudes? Or what garden of rose and violet Lay under the moon wherein they revelled?
She is like a poppy-petal. All the seas of sleep are hidden Under the languorous eyelids, whose Lashes are long and strong to bruise My heart where her lusts like hornets settle On sacred leaves, on flowers forbidden.
She is like a drug of wonder. All the limits of sense dissolve When we fall like snows from the precipice Sun-kissed to the black ravines of ice. I am drowned in the universal thunder; The hours disrupt, the aeons involve.
Ah! not in any mortal mood Ends the great verb we conjugate. From the highest hyberbole she doth swerve In an incommensurable curve, And the line of our beatitude Is one with the sigil of our Fate.
Pallid, a mummy throned, she sits; The Egyptian eyes, the Egyptian hair, The band on her brows, the slender hands, All hieroglyphs of a God's commands Beyond the rimes that a poet knits With fruitless travail, sterile care!
Marvellous! marvellous, marvellous! And again a marvel, a lotus-bud Dropt from the brows of a Goddess unknown On the ivory steps of the golden throne, Virginal brows and luminous With the star-stream flowing therein for blood.
Ah, but electric thrills the Host Of the esoteric Eucharist! The Pagan power of the corn and wine Mystical, magical, hers and mine, The dove-plumed snake of the Holy Ghost That wings and writhes in the wounds unkissed!
Lie there, love—if I love you indeed Who adore and wonder and faint for drouth Of the passion-flower fallen from the other side Of time and space the tedious tide. Lie there, lie there, and let me bleed To death in the breath of the murderous mouth!
II
THE SNOW MAIDEN
To Margaret Callaghan
My love is like the lucent globes That drip from lips of cool crevasses, To clothe them with the virgin robes Of mosses, flowers, and grasses.
O spheres compact of fire and dew, Lamps of the hollows of the mountain, What dream angelic fathered you On what celestial fountain?
Nay! but I lay on lower earth Stagnant in sunless meres! The prison Of monstrous spawn, detested birth— Behold me rearisen!
It was yon fierce diurnal star That licked me up with his huge kisses, And dropped me in his rain afar Upon these frore abysses!
Yea! as I press to the cool moss My mouth, and drink at its delirious Delight—acclaim the Sun across The menaces of Sirius!
Doth not the World's great Alchemist Rule earth's alembic with the sun? Is not the mind a foolish mist, And is not water one?
The slim white body that you gave, Wild Jaja', with exotic nautches Wanton and wonderful, a wave Of debonair debauches,
Is worth the virgin limbs and lips Of her the virtuous, the viceless, With life who never came to grips, Who gave me nothing priceless.
Give me the purity distilled From dervish sweat and satyr bruises. The Holy Graal with wine is filled From no unbroken cruses.
Doth not the World's great Alchemist Corrupt His oysters to make pearls? Shall not these lips praise Him? They kissed No cold reluctant girl's.
Jaja' hath woven the web of God From threads of lust and laughter spun. In heaven the rose is worth the rod; And love as water, One.
III
JEANNE
A PASTORAL
“Hey diddle diddle! the cat and the fiddle! The cow jumped over the moon.”
I laid mine ear against your heart, Jeanne! A masterpiece of nature turned A masterpiece of art, With your blanched Egyptian beauty foiled By the hungry eyes, and the red mouth soiled By the honey of mine that your greed has spoiled, Jeanne! The body a corpse and the soul inurned!
Against your heart I laid mine ear, Jeanne! And the clock went ticking, ticking. How could I choose but hear, Jeanne! Ah me! what thoughts came pricking Like spurs in the flanks of a weary horse? Nor heart nor clock could feel remorse, But kept their definite deadly course, Jeanne! Alas! for man, for his life's disaster: The clock beats fast, but a heart beats faster.
Oh, your love was a marvellous thing, Jeanne! It was dawn, it was fire, it was birth, it was spring, Jeanne! But this is the curse, that it quickens its rate, Lest man by love should escape from fate And win from the dust to the Uncreate, Jeanne! Nay, we are lovers, you and I— And we must die, and our love must die!
How have we striven, each of us, Jeanne! To break the bars of the prison-house, Jeanne! We have raged like cats in a ring of fire, Driven by desire that was true Desire, The hate of the lower, the love of the Higher, Jeanne! What is the end of it, Jeanne? Why, that's A mystery not to be solved by cats!
In the fields we wandered through to-day, Jeanne! Hand in hand, this wonderful May, Jeanne! This May we have made so marvellous With the infinite longing and love of us, In the fields all faery with flowers there lay The placid cows—that had nothing to say, Jeanne! No flame of words from maddening blood, But complacent chewing of the cud. I dared not whisper the sudden fear Of my heart in your miracle of an ear, Jeanne! I tightened my lips, and my hand on yours; So that you might think I loved you more. But now in the midnight the thought endures, And the love—ah what is the dream we adore?
Suppose the infinite peace of the heart, Jeanne! The crest and crown of labour and art, Of the mystic quest, of the toil of the saint, The mount on whose slopes the strongest faint, Jeanne! Suppose that peace of God, that House Of Delight of the Bridegroom and the Spouse, Were only the calm of the chewing cows, Jeanne! Suppose that in all the worlds inane There were one thing only vexed and vain, Turbulent, troubled, and insane, Jeanne! Suppose that the universal plan Had but one flaw, and that flaw were man!
Then—even then—we are here, Jeanne! We love—we shall die, sweet heart, take cheer, Jeanne! We are bound to a fate that brings release; We move in a moil that must one day cease; We shall win to the everlasting peace, Jeanne! And how things are, and why, and whence Are puzzles for fools that lack the sense Of cows—enough of the future tense, Jeanne! For the end of love and the end of art Is just—my ear against your heart!
ADONIS: AN ALLEGORY
PERSONS OF THE ALLEGORY
The King of Babylon, tributary to the King of Greece Hermes, a Greek Physician The Lady Psyche The Count Adonis, at first known as the Lord Esarhaddon The Lady Astarte The Warriors of the King of Babylon Hanuman Servant to Hermes
Charis, Elpis, } Attendants on Psyche Pistis,
Three Aged Women Handmaidens and Slaves of Astarte
ADONIS
ACT I
Scene I: The Hanging Gardens of Babylon. R., the House of the Lady Astarte; L., a gateway; C., a broad lawn enriched with clustered flowers and sculptures. The sun is nigh his setting. On a couch under the wall of the city reposes the Lord Esarhaddon, fanned by two slaves, a negro boy and a fair Kabyle girl, clad in yellow and blue, the boy's robes being covered with a veil of silver, the girl's with a veil of gold. They are singing to him softly:
The Boy. All crimson-veined is Tigris' flood; The sun has stained his mouth with blood.
The Girl. Orange and green his standards sweep.
The Boy. His minions keen.
The Girl. His maidens weep.
The Boy. But thou, Lord, thou! The hour is nigh When from the prow of luxury Shall step the death of all men's hearts, She whose live breath, a dagger's darts, A viper's vice, an adder's grip, A cockatrice 'twixt lip and lip, She whose black eyes are suns to shower Love's litanies from hour to hour, Whose limbs are scythes like Death's of whom The body writhes, a lotus-bloom Swayed by the wind of love, a crime Too sweetly sinned, the queen of time, The lady of heaven, to whom the stars, Seven by seven, from their bars Lean and do worship—even she Who hath given all her sweet self to thee, The Lady Astarte!
The Girl. Peace, O peace! A swan, she sails through ecstasies Of air and marble and flowers, she sways As the full moon through midnight's haze Of gauze—her body is like a dove And a snake, and life, and death, and love!
The Boy. Even as the twilight so is she, Half seen, half subtly apprehended, Ethereally and bodily. The soul incarnate, the body transcended!
The Girl. Aching, aching passionately, Insufferably, utterly splendid!
The Boy. Her lips make pale the setting sun!
The Girl. Her body blackens Babylon!
The Boy. Her eyes turn midnight's murk to grey!
The Girl. Her breasts make midnight of the day!
The Boy. About her, suave and subtle, swims The musk and madness of her limbs!
The Girl. Her mouth is magic like the moon's.
The Boy. Her breath is bliss!
The Girl. Her steps are swoons!
[Enter Astarte, with her five handmaidens.
The Boy. Away, away!
The Girl. With heart's accord, To leave his lady to our lord. [They go out.
The Boy. Let him forget our service done Of palm-leaves waved, that never tires, In his enchanted Babylon Of infinite desires!
[Astarte kneels at the foot of the couch, and taking the feet of Esarhaddon in her hands, covers them with kisses.
Astarte. Nay, never wake! unless to catch my neck And break me up with kisses—never sleep, Unless to dream new pains impossible To waking! Girls! with more than dream's address, Wake him with perfume till he smile, with strokes Softer than moonbeams till he turn, and sigh, With five slow drops of wine between his lips Until his heart heave, with young thrills of song Until his eyelids open, and the first And fairest of ye greet him like a flower, So that awakened he may break from you and turn to me who am all these in one.
First Maiden. Here is the wealth Of all amber and musk, Secreted by stealth In the domes of the dusk!
Second Maiden. Here the caress Of a cheek—let it stir The first liens of liesse Not to me—but to her!
Third Maiden. Here the quintessence Of dream and delight, Evoking the presence Of savour to sight!
Fourth Maiden. List to the trill And the ripple and roll Of a tune that may thrill Thee through sense to the soul!
Fifth Maiden. Look on the fairest, The masterless maid! Ere thine eye thou unbarest, I flicker, I fade.
ALL. Wake! as her garland is tossed in the air When the nymph meets Apollo, our forehead is bare. We divide, we disperse, we dislimn, we dissever, For we are but now, and our lady for ever!
[They go out.
Esarhaddon. I dreamed of thee! Dreams beyond form and name! It was a chain of ages, and a flash Of lightning—which thou wilt—since—Oh I see Nothing, feel nothing, and am nothing—ash Of the universe burnt through!
Astarte. And I the flame!
Esarhaddon. Wreathing and roaring for an ageless aeon, Wrapping the world, spurning the empyrean, Drowning with dark despotic imminence All life and light, annihilating sense— I have been sealed and silent in the womb Of nothingness to burst, a babe's bold bloom, Into the upper aethyr of thine eyes. Oh! one grave glance enkindles Paradise, One sparkle sets me on the throne above, Mine orb the world.
Astarte. Nay, stir not yet. Let love Breathe like the zephyr on the unmoved deep, Sigh to awakening from its rosy sleep; Let the stars fade, and all the east grow grey And tender, ere the first faint rose of day Flush it. Awhile! Awhile! There's crimson bars Enough to blot the noblest of the stars, And bow for adoration ere the rim Start like God's spear to ware the world of Him! Softly!
Esarhaddon. But kiss me!
Astarte. With an eyelash first!
Esarhaddon. Treasure and torture!
Astarte. Tantalising thirst Makes the draught more delicions. Heaven were worth Little without the purgatory, earth!
Esarhaddon. You make earth heaven.
Astarte. And heaven hell. To choose thee Is to interpret misery "To lose thee."
Esarhaddon. Ay! death end all if it must end thy kiss!
Astarte. And death be all if it confirm life's bliss!
Esarhaddon. And death come soon if death fill life's endeavour!
Astarte. And if it spill life's vintage, death come never!
Esarhaddon. The sun sets. Bathe me in the rain of gold!
Astarte. These pearls that decked it shimmering star-cold Fall, and my hair falls, wreathes an aureole. Even as thy love encompasses my soul!
Esarhaddon. I am blinded; I am bruised; I am stung. Each thread Hisses.
Astarte. There's life there for a thousand dead!
Esarhaddon. And death there for a million!
Astarte. Even so. Life, death, new life, a web spun soft and slow By love, the spider, in these palaces That taketh hold.
Esarhaddon. Take hold.
Astarte. Keen joyaunces Mix with the multitudinous murmurings, And all the kisses sharpen into stings. Nay! shall my mouth take hold? Beware! Once fain, How shall it ever leave thy mouth again?
Esarhaddon. Why should it?
Astarte. Is not sleep our master yet?
Esarhaddon. Why must we think when wisdom would forget?
Astarte. Lest we in turn forget to fill the hour.
Esarhaddon. The pensive been leaves honey in the flower.
Astarte. Now the sun's rim is dipped. And thus I dip My gold to the horizon of thy lip.
Esarhaddon. Ah! . . .
Astarte. There's no liquor, none, within the cup.
Esarhaddon. Nay, draw not back; nay, then, but lift me up. I would the cup were molten too; I'd drain Its blasting agony.
Astarte. In vain.
Esarhaddon. In vain? Nay, let the drinker and the draught in one Blaze up at last, and burn down Babylon!
Astarte. All but the garden, and our bed, and—see! The false full moon that comes to rival me.
Esarhaddon. She comes to lamp our love.
[A chime of bells without.
Astarte. I'll tire my hair. The banquet waits. Girls, follow me.
[They go out, leaving Esarhaddon.
Esarhaddon. How fair And full she sweeps, the buoyant barge upon The gilded curves of Tigris. She's the swan That drew the gods to gaze, the fawn that called Their passion to his glades of emerald, The maid that maddened Mithras, the quick quiver Of reeds that drew Oannes from the river! . . . She is gone. The garden is a wilderness. Oh for the banquet of the lioness, the rich astounding wines, the kindling meats, The music and the dancers! Fiery seats Of empire of the archangels, let your wings Ramp through the empyrean! Lords and Kings Of the Gods, descend and serve us, as we spurn And trample life, fill death's sardonyx urn With loves immortal—how shall I endure This moment's patience? Ah, she comes, be sure! Her foot flits on the marble. . . . Open, gate!
[The gate, not of the house but of the garden, opens. The Lady Psyche appears. She is clothed in deep purple, as mourning, and her hair is bound with a fillet of cypress and acacia. She is attended by three maidens and three aged women.
What tedious guest arrives?
Psyche. White hour of fate! I have found him!
Esarhaddon. Who is this? . . . Fair lady, pardon. You seek the mistress of the garden?
Psyche. I thought I had found the lord I seek. Your pardon, lord. These eyes are weary and weak With tears and my vain search.
Esarhaddon. Whom seek you then?
Psyche. My husband—my sole miracle of men, The Count Adonis.
[Esarhaddon staggers and falls on the couch.
Psyche. You know of him?
Esarhaddon. No. I cannot tell what struck me so. I never heard the name.
Psyche. Indeed, your eyes Are liker his than wedded dragon-flies! Your brows are his, your mouth is his— Yet all's awry!
Esarhaddon. May be it is!
Psyche. Oh, pardon. Mine is but a mad girl's glance Adonis is this soul's inheritance. All else is madness.
Esarhaddon. Mad! Mad! Mad! Mad! Mad! Why say you this? Who are you? Sad? Glad? Bad? Bad! Bad! Speak, speak! Bleak peak of mystery? Weak cheek of modesty?
Psyche. Oh, pardon me! I did not mean to move you thus.
Esarhaddon. I am stirred Too easily. You used a shameful word!
Psyche. Accept my sorrow. I am all alone In this black night. My heart is stone, My limbs are lead, mine eyes accurst, My throat a hell of thirst. . . . My husband—they suppose him dead. . . . They made me wear these weeds. Could I In my heart credit half they said, Not these funereal robes should wrap me round, But the white cerements of a corpse, and high Upon a pyre of sandal and ebony, Should dare through flame the inequitable profound! But only these of all mine household come In faith and hope and love so far from home, And these three others joined me—why, who knows? But thou, lord, in whose face his likeness shows— At the first glance—for now, i' faith, 'tis gone!— Hast thou dwelt away here in Babylon?
Esarhaddon. Now must I laugh—forgive me in your sorrow! My life's not yesterday and not to-morrow. I live; I know no more.
Psyche. How so?
Esarhaddon. I fear I know but this, that I'm a stranger here. The call me the Lord Esarhaddon—name Borrowed or guessed, I cannot tell! I came Whence I know not—some malady Destroyed my memory.
Psyche. Oh, were you he! But yet I see you are not. Had you no tokens from the life forgot?
Esarhaddon. Nay, I came naked into Babylon. I live the starlight and sleep through the sun. I am happy in love, I am rich, I eat and drink, I gather goods, I laugh, I never think. Know me the prince of perfect pleasure!
Psyche. Yet Is there not something that you would forget? Some fear that chills you? While you talk to me I see you glance behind you fearfully.
Esarhaddon [with furtive fear amounting to horror] You see the Shadow?
Psyche. No: slim shadows stretch From yonder moon, and woo the world, and etch With their fantastic melancholy grotesques The earth—man's destiny in arabesques.
Esarhaddon. You are blind! You are mad! See where he stands! It is the King of Babylon, Reeking daggers in his hands— And black blood oozes, oozes, throbs and dips From his eyes and nostrils to his lips That he sucks, gnashing his fangs. Upon His head is a crown of skulls, and monkeys new And gibber and mop about him. Skew! Spew! Ugh! Hu! Mow! Now! Mow! they go—cannot you hear them? What? have you courage to go near them?
Psyche. Nothing is there.
Esarhaddon. Oh, but he has the head Of a boar, the black boar Night! All dead, dead, dead, The eyes of girls that once were beautiful Hang round his neck. Whack! Crack! he slaps a skull For a drum—Smack! Flack! Thwack! Back, I'll not attack. Quack! Quack! there's ducks and devils on his back. Keep him away. You want a man, you say? Well, there's a king for you to-day. Go, kiss him! Slobber over him! HIs ribs Should be readily tickled. Wah! Wah! Wah! she jibs. Ugh! there he came too close. I'll bite the dust; I'll lick the slime of Babylon. Great lust, Great god, great devil, gar-gra-gra-gra! Spare me! Take this wench, though she were the womb that bare me! See! Did I tell you, he's the King, the King, The King of Terrors. See me grovelling! Yah! Ha!
Psyche. There's nothing there. Are you a man To craze at naught?
Esarhaddon. Immitigable ban! Immitigable, pitiful, profound— Ban, can, fan, ran, and pan is underground, Round, bound, sound—Oh have pity! . . . Who art thou Whose coming thus unmans me? Not till now Saw I, or felt I, or heard I, the King So mumbling near; black blood's on everything. Boo! Scow! Be off! Out! Vanish! Fly! Begone! Out! Off! Out! Off! I'm King of Babylon. Oh no! Thy pardon. Spare me! 'Tis as a slip O' th' lip. Now flip! rip! bawdy harlot, skip! [He threatens her. She trembles, but holds her ground. Strip, yes, I'll strip you naked, strip your flesh In strips with my lips, gnaw your bones like a dog. Off, sow! Off, grumpet! Strumpet! Scum-pit! Flails to thresh Your body! Clubs to mash your face in! Knives To cut away your cat's nine lives!
Astarte. [Entering hastily.] What's this? Who are you? What right have you to come And make this havoc in the home? Can you not see what wreck your tempest makes? Begone! I have a fiery flight of snakes To lash you hence!
Psyche. It may be mine's the right. It may be you are nothing in my sight. It may be I have found my lord at last; And you—his concubine? May be out-cast.
Astarte. This is the sure thing, that I chase thee. Slaves! Hither your whips! that are more black with blood Of such as this thing than your skins with kisses Of your sun's frenzy. [The slaves run up.
Psyche. Thou vain woman! Now I know him, lost, wrecked, mad, but mine, but mine, Indissolubly dowered with me, my husband, The Count Adonis!
Esarhaddon. Ah! [He falls, but into the arms of Astarte.
Astarte. Ho! guard us now And lash this thing from the garden! [The slaves form in line between Psyche and the others.
Psyche. Adonis!
Esarhaddon. Ah! Astarte, there's some sorcery abroad.
Astarte. The spell is broken, dear my lord. There is a wall of ebony and steel About us.
Esarhaddon. What then do I feel When that name sounds?
Astarte. A trick of mind. Things broken up and left behind Keep roots to plague us when we least expect them. The wise—and thou art wise—let naught affect them. Let us to feast!
Esarhaddon. Ah no! I tremble still, Despite my reason and despite my will. Let me lie with thee here awhile, and dream Upon thine eyes beneath the moon, Whose slanted beam Lights up thy face, that sends its swoon Of languour and hunger through The infinite space that severs two So long as they cannot rise above Into the unity of love. However close lock hands and feet, Only one moment may they meet; When in the one pang that runs level With death and birth, the royal revel, The lover and the loved adore The thing that is, when they are not.
Astarte. No more! Bury thy face between these hills that threat The heaven, their rosy spears (the gods that fret) Tipping thine ears, and with my hair I'll hide thee; And these mine handmaidens shall stand beside thee, And mix their nightingale with lion Of the guard that chorus and clash iron, While as a river laps its banks My fingertips caress thy flanks!
[They sing.
Men. Under the sun there is none, there is none That hath heard such a word as our lord hath begun.
Women. Under the moon such a tune, such a tune As his thought hath half caught in this heaven of June.
Men. Never hath night such a light, such a rite!
Women. Never had day such a ray, such a sway!
Men. Never had man, since began the earth's plan, Such a bliss, such a kiss, such a woman as this!
Women. Never had maid since God bade be arrayed Earth's bowers with his flowers, such a man to her powers!
Men. Mix in the measure, Black grape and white cherry! A passion, a pleasure, A torment, a treasure, You to be mournful and we to be merry!
Women. We shall be solemn And grave and alluring, You be the column Upstanding, enduring. We be the ivy and vine To entwine— My mouth on your mouth, and your mouth on mine!
Men. Burnish our blades With your veils, Merry maids!
Women. Sever their cords With the scales Of your swords!
Men. As a whirlwind that licks up a leaf Let us bear You, an aureate sheaf Adrift in the air!
Women. As a butterfly hovers and flits, Let us guide To bewilder your wits Bewitched by a bride!
Men. Now, as the stars shall Encircle the moon, Our ranks let us marshal In time and in tune!
Women. Leading our lady and lord To the feast, Ere the night be abroad, The black rose of the east!
Men and Women Arise! arise! the feast is spread, The wine is poured; the singers wait Eager to lure and lull; the dancers tread Impatient to invoke the lords of Fate. Arise, arise! the feast delayed delays The radiant raptures that must crown its ways.
Astarte. Come now. Ah! still the pallor clings? Wine will redeem the roses. Stretch the strings Of thy slack heart! Still trembling? Lean on me! This shoulder could hold up eternity. [They go forth to the banquet.
SCENE II. THE HALL OF THE PALACE OF Astarte. Onyx, alabaster, porphyry and malachite are the pillars; and the floor of mosaic. In the high seat is Astarte, on her right Hermes, A Greek physician. He is a slight, old man, with piercing eyes and every mark of agility and vigour. His dress is that of a Babylonish physician.
Hermes. And now, polite preliminaries past, Tell me, dear lady, what the little trouble is!
Astarte. It was quite sudden.
Hermes. Good; not like to last. It bursts, such malady a brittle bubble is! How is the pulse? Allow me!
Astarte. Not for me Your skill. My husband's lost his memory.
Hermes. Yet he remembers you?
Astarte. O quite, of course!
Hermes. Let it alone! Don't flog the willing horse! Were I to cure him by my magic spells, The odds are he'd remember someone else!
Astarte. Ah, but—a month ago—a woman came—
Hermes. Cool—warm—hot—now we're getting near the flame!
Astarte. And what she said or did who knows?
Hermes. These men!
Astarte. Yes! But he's never been the same since then! I've taken endless trouble not to fret him, Done everything I could to please and pet him, And now this wretched woman has upset him!
Hermes. Was he distressed much at the time?
Astarte. Distressed? Mad as an elephant in spring!
Hermes. I guessed It. Think he took a fancy to the girl?
Astarte. Well, honestly, I don't. My mind's a whirl With worry. She's a flimsy creature, rags Of sentiment, and tears, and worn-out tags Of wisdom.
Hermes. Yes, you've nothing much to fear While you appear as . . . what you do appear.
Astarte. Well, there they stood, crying like butchered swine, She and her maids. It seems she's lost her man, Can't get another, wanted to claim mine. I put a stopper on the pretty plan. But ever since—well, I can't say what's wrong, But something's wrong.
Hermes. Yes; yes. Now is it long?
Astarte. About a month.
Hermes. What physic have you tried?
Astarte. The usual things; young vipers skinned and dried And chopped with rose-leaves; cow's hoof stewed in dung, One pilule four times daily, on the tongue; Lark's brains in urine after every meal, With just a touch of salt and orange-peel.
Hermes. And yet he is no better?
Astarte. Not a whit. Oh yes, though, not I come to think of it, Snails pounded up and taken after food Did seem to do some temporary good. Of course we kept him on a doubled diet.
Hermes. Have you tried change of air, and rest, and quiet?
Astarte. No; what a strange idea!
Hermes. As strange as new. Yet there seems somehow something in it too! Still, here's where silence is worth seven speeches— I might get strangled by my brother leeches. Now, are you sure you want him cured?
Astarte. Why, yes, Why should I call you in?
Hermes. But none the less It might be awkward his remembering more.
Astarte. I simply want him as he was before.
Hermes. And if it should turn out, as I suspect, He was this woman's husband.
Astarte. Then select A—you know—something suitable—to put her Where she won't worry me, or want a suitor.
Hermes. I understand you; but I'm old; your beauty Might fail to make me careless of my duty.
Astarte. I'll take the risk.
Hermes. Then let me see the victim; If bound, we'll loosen him; if loose, constrict him. There, madam, in one phrase from heart to heart, Lies the whole mystery of the healer's art! Where is the pathic?
Astarte. Hush! in Babylon We say "the patient."
Hermes. Yes?
Astarte. It's often one. For Babylonish is so quaint a tongue One often goes too right by going wrong! I'll call him from the garden. [Goes out.
Hermes. [alone] Is there need To see the man? He's simply off his feed. A child could see the way to make him hearty: More exercise, less food—and less Astarte! [Enter Esarhaddon. I greet your lordship.
Esarhaddon. Greeting, sir!
Hermes. And so We're not as healthy as a month ago? The pulse? Allow me! Ah! Tut! Tut! Not bad. The tongue? Thanks! Kindly tell me what you had For dinner.
Esarhaddon. Nothing: practically nothing. I seem to look on food with utter loathing.
Hermes. Just so; but you contrived to peck a bit?
Esarhaddon. Only a dozen quails upon the spit, A little sturgeon cooked with oysters, wine, Mushrooms and crayfish. . . .
Hermes. That is not to dine.
Esarhaddon. Well, after that I toyed with pheasant pasty, Sliced—you know how—with pineapple.
Hermes. Eat hasty?
Esarhaddon. No, not at all. Well, then a sucking-pig Stuffed with grape, olive, cucumber, peach, fig, And lemon. Then I trifled with a curry—
Hermes. You're sure you didn't eat it in a hurry?
Esarhaddon. Quite sure. The curry was simplicity Itself—plain prawns. Then there was—let me see!— A dish of fruit, then a kid roasted whole, Some venison fried with goose-liver, a roll Of very tender spicy well-cooked veal Done up with honey, olive oil, and meal, Some sweets, but only three or four, and those I hardly touched.
Hermes. But why now?
Esarhaddon. I suppose I wasn't hungry.
Hermes. Diagnosis right; A simple case of loss of appetite! Surely they tempted you with something else.
Esarhaddon. A few live lobsters broiled within their shells. I ate two only.
Hermes. That explains the tongue. Now let me listen! Sound in heart and lung. (And I should think so!) 'Twas a sage that sung: "Whom the Gods love, love lobsters; they die young." And yet greater sage sublimely said: "Look not upon the lobster when it's red!"
Esarhaddon. A Babylonish bard has said the same Of wine.
Hermes. Ah, wine now? Out with it! Die game!
Esarhaddon. By fin and tail of great Oannes, I Am the mere model of sobriety.
Hermes. What did you drink for dinner?
Esarhaddon. Scarce a drop At any time—four flagons, there I stop. With just a flask of barley-wine to top.
Hermes. Just so becomes a nobleman of sense Whose moderation errs toward abstinence.
Esarhaddon. Abstinence! That's the word I couldn't think of! I'm an abstainer. Everything I drink of Is consecrated by a melancholic Priest.
Hermes. Which prevents it being alcoholic!
Esarhaddon. Sir, you appear to understand my case As no one else has done. Appalling face These quacks have that crowd Babylon. Your fee? Though none can pay the service done to me.
Hermes. One moment. What about your memory? Well, never mind, just follow my advice; That will come back before you say "knife" twice. First, fire your slaves, the rogues that thieve and laze: A slave's worse than two masters now-a-days. Next, live on nothing but boiled beans and tripe, With once a week a melon—when they're ripe. Next, sent the Lady Astarte up the river; She looks to me to have a touch of liver. And you must teach your muscles how to harden, So stay at home, and labour in the garden!
Esarhaddon. You damned insulting blackguard! Charlatan! Quack! Trickster! Scoundrel! Cheating medicine-man! You ordure-tasting privy-sniffing rogue, You think because your humbug is the vogue You can beard me?
Hermes. I'll tell you just one thing. Disobey me, and—trouble with the King!
Esarhaddon. Ring-a-ling-ting! Ping! Spring!
Hermes. That's cooked his goose. I'll tell Astarte, though it's not much use. ["He goes out." It's only one more of life's little curses— The best of women make the worst of nurses!
Scene III. The Consulting-room of Hermes. It has two parts, the first filled with stuffed crocodiles, snakes, astrolabes, skeletons, lamps of strange shape, vast rolls of papyri, vases containing such objects as a foetus, a mummied child, a six-legged sheep. Hands (obviously those of criminals) have been painted with phosphorus, and give light. Sculptures of winged bulls and bricks inscribed with arrow-head characters are ranged about the walls. A chain of elephant's bones covered with its hide contains the doctor, who is dressed as before in a long black robe covered with mysterious characters. On his head is a high conical cap of black silk dotted with gold stars. In his right hand is a wand of human teeth strung together, in his left a "book" of square palm-leaves bound in silver. At the back of the room is a black curtain completely veiling its second portion. This curtain is covered with cabalistic characters and terrifying images in white.
[Enter the servant of Hermes, a negro uglier than an ape. He is immensely long and lean; his body hangs forward, so that his arms nearly touch the ground. He is clad in a tightly fitting suit of scarlet, and wears a scarlet skull-cap. he makes deep obeisance.
Hermes. Speak, Hanuman!
Hanuman. A lady. [Hermes nods gravely. Exit Hanuman.
Hermes. Abaoth! Abraxas! Pur! Put! Aeou! Thoth!
[Enter the Lady Psyche with one attendant.
Ee! Oo! Uu! Iao Sabaoth! Dogs of Hell! Mumble spell! Up! Up! Up! Sup! Sup! Sup! U! Aoth! Abaoth! Abraoth! Sabaoth! Livid, loath, Obey the oath! Ah!
[He shuts the book with a snap,
You have come to me because you are crossed In love.
Psyche. Most true, sir!
Hermes. Ah! you're Greek!
Psyche. As you yourself, sir.
Hermes. Then I've lost My pains. I need not fear to speak. I took you for a fool. Ho! veil, divide! [Hanuman appears and lays his hand on a cord. Things are much pleasanter the other side.
[The doctor throws off his cloak and cap, his straggling white hair and long pointed beard, appearing as a youth dressed fashionably; at the same time the curtain pulled back shows a room furnished with the luxury of a man of the world. A low balcony of marble at the back gives a view of the city, and of the Tigris winding far into the distance, where dim blue mountains rim the horizon. [The doctor conducts his client to a lounge, where they sit.
Hermes. Bring the old Chian, Hanuman! [The negro goes to obey. This joke Is the accepted way of scaring folk; And if they're scared, they may find confidence Which is half cure. Most people have no sense. If only they would sweat, and wash, eat slow, Drink less, think more, the leech would starve or go. But they prefer debauchery, disease, Clysters, drugs, philtres, filth, and paying fees! Now then, to business!
Psyche. Tell me how you guessed It was my heart that found itself distressed!
Hermes. I always sing a woman just that song; In twenty years I've never once been wrong. Seeing me thus marvellously wise, Veneration follows on surprise: Sometime they will do what I advise!
Psyche. I see. You have real knowledge.
Hermes. Not to be learnt at college!
Psyche. Good; you're my man. I am come from Greece, Where the Gods live and love us, sorrowing For my lost husband. I have found him here, But with his memory gone, his mind distraught, Living in luxury with a courtesan (I could forgive him that if he knew me), Filled with a blind unreasoning fear of what Who knows? He's haunted by a spectre king.
Hermes. Physicians must know everything: Half the night burn learning's candle, Half the day devote to scandal. Here's the mischief of the matter That I learn most from the latter! Yesterday I paid a visit To the fair . . . Astarte, is it? Saw the kitchen and the closet, Deduced diet from deposit, Saw where silkworm joined with swan To make a bed to sleep upon, Saw the crowd of cringing knaves That have made their masters slaves, Saw Astarte—diagnosed What had made him see a ghost!
Psyche. Can you cure him?
Hermes. In my hurry (And a not unnatural worry At the name of lobster curry) I so far forgot my duty As to mention to the beauty What . . . well! here's the long and short of it! Just exactly what I thought of it. Tempests, by Oannes' fin!
Psyche. Sorry that he'd called you in?
Hermes. So much so that I'd a doubt If he wouldn't call me out!
Psyche. Then he will not hear your counsel?
Hermes. No; I bade him live on groundsel; But the little social friction Interfered with the prescription.
Psyche. There's no hope, then?
Hermes. Lend an ear! We may rule him by his fear! Somehow we may yet contrive That he see the King, and live! Have you influence?
Psyche. At Court? Plenty, in the last resort. Letters from his suzerain!
Hermes. You are high in favour then?
Psyche. Ay, that needs not to be sworn; I am his own daughter born.
Hermes. In thy blood the spark divine Of Olympus?
Psyche. Even in mine!
Hermes. Hark, then! At the Hour of Fears When the lordly Lion rears In mid-heaven his bulk of bane Violently vivid, shakes his mane Majestical, and Snake and Bull Lamp the horizon, and the full Fire of the moon tops heaven, and spurs The stars, while Mars ruddily burns, And Venus glows, and Jupiter Ramps through the sky astride of her, Then, unattended, let the king Press on the little secret spring That guards the garden, and entering Lay once his hand upon him, even While in the white arms of his heaven He swoons to sleep. That dreadful summons From the wild witchery his woman's. That shaft of shattering truth shall splinter The pine of his soul's winter. Then do thou following cry once His name; as from eclipse the sun's Supernal splendour springs, his sight Shall leap to light.
Psyche. Shall leap to light! Master, this wisdom how repay?
Hermes. I am sworn unto thy father—Nay! Weep not and kneel not! See, mine art [The two other handmaidens are seen standing by their fellow. Hath wrought such wonder in thine heart That—look!
Psyche. Ah! Pistis, Elpis! how Are you here? You were not with me now! You fled me. Charis only came Through those dark dreams.
Hermes. Farewell! Proclaim For my reward my art's success. More than yourself need happiness.
Psyche. Farewell and prosper greatly! [She goes out with her maidens.
Hermes. And thou, live high and stately In glory and gree tenfold That which thou hadst of old! [He draws the curtain.
Scene IV: The Antechamber of the King's Palace. It is a vast hall of black marble. At the corners four fountains play in basins of coloured marble. At the back a narrow door pillared by vast man-bulls in white marble.
In mid-stage the Lady Psyche, seated on the ground, her long hair unloosed, her robe of shining silver, mourns.
With her are the three handmaidens bowed and mourning at front of the stage R., C., and L. The aged women are grouped in front of stage "C., "on the steps which lead to the hall.
No light comes save through the robes of the LADY Psyche from the jewels that adorn her. Their glimmer is, however, such as to fill the hall with moony radiance, misty dim, and lost in the vastness of the building.
Psyche. Silence grows hateful; hollow is mine heart Here in the fateful hall; I wait apart. Dimmer, still dimmer darkness veils my sight; There is no glimmer heralding the light. I, the King's daughter, am but serf and thrall Where Time hath wrought her cobweb in the hall. This blood avails not; where's the signet ring Whose pussiance fails not to arouse the King? Heir of his heart, I am uncrowned; then, one That hath no art or craft in Babylon. I left my home and found a vassal's house— This lampless dome of death, vertiginous! O for the foam of billows that carouse About the crag-set columns! for the breeze That fans their flagging Caryatides! For the gemmed vestibule, the porch of pearl, The bowers of rest, the silences that furl Their wings upon mine amethystine chamber Whose lions shone with emerald and amber! O for the throne whereon my father's awe, Lofty and lone, lets liberty love law! All justice wrought, its sword the healer's knife! All mercy, not less logical than life! Alas! I wait a widowed suppliant Betrayed to fate, blind trampling elephant. I wait and mourn. Will not the dust disclose The Unicorn, the Unicorn that goes About the gardens of these halls of Spring, First of the wardens that defend the King? Wilt thou not bring me to the Unicorn? [The Unicorn passes over. He has the swiftness of the horse, the slimness of the deer, the whiteness of the swan, the horn of the narwhal. He couches upon the right side of the Lady Psyche. Hail! thou that holdest thine appointed station, Lordliest and boldest of his habitation, Silence that foldest over its creation! [The Lion passes over. He is redder than the setting sun. He couches upon the left side of the Lady Psyche. Hail! thou that art his ward and warrior, The brazen heart, the iron pulse of war! Up start, up start! and set thyself to roar! [The Peacock passes over. This peacock is so great that his fan, as he spreads it on couching before the face of the Lady Psyche, fills the whole of the hall. Hail! glory and light his majesty that hideth, Pride and delight whereon his image rideth, While in thick night and darkness he abideth! [The stage now darkens. Even the light shed by the jewels of the Lady Psyche is extinguished. Then, from the gate of the Palace between the man-bulls there issueth a golden hawk. In his beak is a jewel which he drops into the lamp that hangs from the height above the head of the Lady Psyche. This lamp remains dark. During this darkness the Unicorn, the Lion, and the Peacock disappear. Love me and lead me through the blind abysses! Fill me and feed me on the crowning kisses, Like flowers that flicker in the garden of glory, Pools of pure liquor like pale flames and hoary That lamp the lightless empyrean! Ah! love me! All space be sightless, and thine eyes above me! Thrice burnt and branded on this bleeding brow, Stamp thou the candid stigma—even now! [The lamp flashes forth into dazzling but momentary radiance. As it goes out a cone of white light is seen upon the head of the Lady Psyche, And before her stands a figure of immense height cloaked and hooded in perfect blackness.
The King. Come! for the throne is hollow. The eagle hath cried: Come away! The stars are numbered, and the tide Turns. Follow! Follow! Thine Adonis slumbered. As a bride Adorned, come, follow! Fate alone is fallen and wried. Follow me, follow! The unknown is satisfied. [The Lady Psyche is lifted to her feet. In silence she bows, and in silence follows him as he turns and advances to the gate while the curtain falls.
SCENE V: The Garden of the Lady Astarte. The Lord Esarhaddon is lying on the couch with his mistress. Their arms are intertwined. They and their slaves and maidens are all fallen into the abysses of deep sleep. It is a cloudless night; and the full moon, approaching mid-heaven, casts but the shortest shadows.
The Murmur of the Breeze
I am the Breeze to bless the bowers, Sigh through the trees, caress the flowers; Each folded bud to sway, to swoon, With its green blood beneath the moon Stirred softly by my kiss; I bear The sort reply of amber air To the exhaled sighs of the heat That dreams and dies amid the wheat, From the cool breasts of mountains far— Their serried crests clasp each a star! The earth's pulse throbs with mighty rivers; With her low sobs God's heaven quivers; The dew stands on her brow; with love She aches for all the abyss above, Her rocks and chasms the lively strife Of her sharp spasms of lust, of life. Hark! to the whisper of my fan, My sister kiss to maid and man. Through all earth's wombs, through all sea's waves, Gigantic glooms, forgotten graves, I haunt the tombs of kings and slaves. I hush the babe, I wake the bird, I wander away beyond stars unstirred, Soften the ripples of the tide, Soothe the bruised nipples of the bride, Help stars and clouds play hide-and-seek, Wind seamen's shrouds, bid ruins speak, Bring dreams to slumber, sleep to dream Whose demons cumber night's extreme. And softer sped than dream or death Quiet as the dead, or slain love's breath, I sigh for loves that swoon upon The hanging groves of Babylon. Each terrace adds a shower of scent Where lass and lad seduce content; Each vine that hangs confirms the stress Of purer pangs of drunkenness; Each marble wall and pillar swerves Majestical my course to curves Subtle as breasts and limbs and tresses Of this caressed suave sorceress's That raves and rests in wildernesses Whose giant gifts are strength that scars Her soul and lifts her to the stars, Savage, and tenderness that tunes Her spirit's splendour to the moon's, And music of passion to outrun The fiery fashion of the sun. Hush! there's a stir not mine amid the groves, A foot divine that yet is not like love's. Hush! let me furl my forehead! I'll be gone To flicker and curl above great Babylon.
[The Gate of the Garden opens. The Lady Psyche advances and makes way for The King of Babylon. He is attended by many companies of warriors in armour of burnished silver and gold, with swords, spears, and shields.
[These take up position at the back of the stage, in perfect silence of foot as of throat.
[The Lady Psyche remains standing by the gate; The King of Babylon advances with infinite stealth, dignity, slowness, and power, toward the couch.
Psyche. Life? Is it life? What hour of fate is on the bell? Of this supreme ordeal what issue? Heaven or hell? I am stripped of all my power now when I need it most; I am empty and unreal, a shadow or a ghost. All the great stake is thrown, even now the dice are falling. All deeds are locked in links, one to another calling Through time: from the dim throne the first rune that was ree'd By God, the supreme Sphinx, determined the last deed. [The King of Babylon reaches forth his hand and arm. It is the hand and arm of a skeleton. He touches the forehead of the sleeping lord. Instantly, radiant and naked, a male figure is seen erect.
Psyche. Adonis!
Adonis. Psyche! [They run together and embrace.
Psyche. Ah! long-lost!
Adonis. My wife! Light, O intolerable! Infinite love! O life Beyond death!
Psyche. I have found thee!
Adonis. I was thine.
Psyche. I thine From all the ages!
Adonis. To the ages!
Psyche. Mine! [The King passes over and departs.
Chorus of Soldiers
Hail to the Lord! Without a spear, without a sword He hath smitten, he hath smitten, one stroke of his Worth all our weaponed puissiances. There is no helm, no hauberk, no cuirass, No shield of sevenfold steel and sevenfold brass Resists his touch; no sword, no spear but shivers Before his glance. Eternally life quivers And reels before him; death itself, the hound of God, Slinks at his heel, and licks the dust that he hath trod. [They follow their Lord, singing.
Psyche. I am a dewdrop focussing the sun That fires the forest to the horizon. I am a cloud on whom the sun begets The iris arch, a fountain in whose jets Throbs inner fire of the earth's heart, a flower Slain by the sweetness of the summer shower.
Adonis. I am myself, knowing I am thou. Forgetfulness forgotten now! Truth, truth primeval, truth eternal, Unconditioned, sempiternal, Sets the God within the shrine And my mouth on thine, on thine. [The Lady Astarte wakes. In her arms is the corpse of the Lord Esarhaddon.
Astarte. O fearful dreams! Awake and kiss me! Awake! I thought I was crushed and strangled by a snake. [She rises. The corpse falls. He is dead! He is dead! O lips of burning bloom, You are ashen. [The jaw falls. The black laughter of the tomb! Then let me kill myself! Bring death distilled From nightshade, monkshood. Let no dawn regild this night. Let me not see the damned light Of day, but drown in this black-hearted night! Ho, slaves! [Adonis and Psyche advance to her.
Adonis. Thyself a slave! What curse (unbated Till patient earth herself is nauseated) Is worse than this, an handmaiden that creeps Into her mistress' bed while her lord sleeps, And robs her?
Astarte. And what worse calamity Than his revenge? But leave me, let me die! [She falls prone at their feet.
Psyche. Add robbery to robbery! We need thee To serve us. Let us raise thee up and feed thee, Comfort and cherish thee until the end, Less slave than child, less servitor than friend.
Adonis. Rise! let the breath flow, let the lips affirm Fealty and love. To the appointed term Within thy garden as beloved guests Of thine, let us abide. Now lips and breasts Touching, three bodies and one soul, the triple troth Confirm.
Psyche. The great indissoluble oath!
Astarte. Lift me! [They raise her; all embrace. By him that ever reigns upon The throne, and wears the crown, of Babylon, I serve, and love.
Psyche. This kiss confirm it!
Adonis. This!
Astarte. I have gained all in losing all. Now kiss Once more with arms linked!
Adonis. The dawn breaks!
Astarte. Behold Love's blush!
Psyche. Light's breaking!
Adonis. Life's great globe of gold!
Astarte. Come! let us break our fast.
Psyche. My long fast's broken.
Adonis. Let us talk of love.
Psyche. Love's first-last word is spoken.
Adonis. Nay! but the tides of trouble are transcended. The word's begun, but never shall be ended. And through the sun forsake the maiden east, Life be for us a never-fading feast. [They go towards the house, singing.
All. The Crown of our life is our love, The crown of our love is the light That rules all the region above The night and the stars of the night; That rules all the region aright, The abyss to abysses above; For the crown of our love is the light, And the crown of our light is our love.
INDEPENDENCE
Come to my arms—is it eve? is it morn? Is Apollo awake? Is Diana reborn? Are the streams in full song? Do the woods whisper hush Is it the nightingale? Is it the thrush? Is it the smile of the autumn, the blush Of the spring? Is the world full of peace or alarms? Come to my arms, Laylah, come to my arms!
Come to my arms, though the hurricane blow. Thunder and summer, or winter and snow, It is one to us, one, while our spirits are curled In the crimson caress: we are fond, we are furled Like lilies away from the war of the world. Are there spells beyond ours? Are there alien charms? Come to my arms, Laylah, come to my arms!
Come to my arms! is it life? is it death? Is not all immortality born of your breath? Are not heaven and hell but as handmaids of yours Who are all that enflames, who are all that allures, Who are all that destroys, who are all that endures? I am yours, do I care if it heals me or harms? Come to my arms, Laylah, come to my arms!
A BIRTHDAY
Aug. 10. 1911
Full moon to-night; and six and twenty years Since my full moon first broke from angel spheres! A year of infinite love unwearying— No circling seasons, but perennial spring! A year of triumph trampling through defeat, The first made holy and the last made sweet By this same love; a year of wealth and woe, Joy, poverty, health, sickness—all one glow In the pure light that filled our firmament Of supreme silence and unbarred extent, Wherein one sacrament was ours, one Lord, One resurrection, one recurrent chord, One incarnation, one descending dove, All these being one, and that one being Love!
You sent your spirit into tunes; my soul Yearned in a thousand melodies to enscroll Its happiness: I left no flower unplucked That might have graced your garland. I induct Tragedy, comedy, farce, fable, song, Each longing a little, each a little long, But each aspiring only to express Your excellence and my unworthiness— Nay! but my worthiness, since I was sense And spirit too of that same excellence.
So thus we solved the earth's revolving riddle: I could write verse, and you could play the fiddle, While, as for love, the sun went through the signs, And not a star but told him how love twines A wreath for every decanate, degree, Minute and second, linked eternally In chains of flowers that never fading are, Each one as sempiternal as a star.
Let me go back to your last birthday. Then I was already your one man of men Appointed to complete you, and fulfil From everlasting the eternal will. We lay within the flood of crimson light In my own balcony that August night, And conjuring the aright and the averse Created yet another universe.
We worked together; dance and rite and spell Arousing heaven and constraining hell. We lived together; every hour of rest Was honied from your tiger-lily breast. We—oh what lingering doubt or fear betrayed My life to fate!—we parted. Was I afraid? I was afraid, afraid to live my love, Afraid you played the serpent, I the dove, Afraid of what I know not. I am glad Of all the shame and wretchedness I had, Since those six weeks have taught me not to doubt you, And also that I cannot live without you.
Then I came back to you; black treasons rear Their heads, blind hates, deaf agonies of fear, Cruelty, cowardice, falsehood, broken pledges, The temple soiled with senseless sacrileges, Sickness and poverty, a thousand evils, Concerted malice of a million devils;— You never swerved; your high-pooped galleon Went marvellously, majestically on Full-sailed, while every other braver bark Drove on the rocks, or foundered in the dark.
Then Easter, and the days of all delight! God's sun lit noontide and his moon midnight, While above all, true centre of our world, True source of light, our great love passion-pearled Gave all its life and splendour to the sea Above whose tides stood our stability.
Then sudden and fierce, no monitory moan, Smote the mad mischief of the great cyclone. How far below us all its fury rolled! How vainly sulphur tries to tarnish gold! We lived together: all its malice meant Nothing but freedom of a continent!
It was the forest and the river that knew The fact that one and one do not make two. We worked, we walked, we slept, we were at ease, We cried, we quarrelled; all the rocks and trees For twenty miles could tell how lovers played, And we could count a kiss for every glade. Worry, starvation, illness and distress? Each moment was a mine of happiness.
Then we grew tired of being country mice, Came up to Paris, lived our sacrifice There, giving holy berries to the moon, July's thanksgiving for the joys of June.
And you are gone away—and how shall I Make August sing the raptures of July? And you are gone away—what evil star Makes you so competent and popular? How have I raised this harpy-hag of Hell's Malice—that you are wanted somewhere else? I wish you were like me a man forbid, Banned, outcast, nice society well rid Of the pair of us—then who would interfere With us?—my darling, you would now be here!
But no! we must fight on, win through, succeed, Earn the grudged praise that never comes to meed, Lash dogs to kennel, trample snakes, put bit In the mule-mouths that have such need of it, Until the world there's so much to forgive in Becomes a little possible to live in.
God alone knows if battle or surrender Be the true courage; either has its splendour. But since we chose the first, God aid the right, And damn me if I fail you in the fight! God join again the ways that lie apart, And bless the love of loyal heart to heart! God keep us every hour in every thought, And bring the vessel of our love to port!
These are my birthday wishes. Dawn's at hand, And you're an exile in a lonely land. But what were magic if it could not give My thought enough vitality to live? Do not then dream this night has been a loss! All night I have hung, a god, upon the cross; All night I have offered incense at the shrine; All night you have been unutterably mine, Miner in the memory of the first wild hour When my rough grasp tore the unwilling flower From your closed garden, mine in every mood, In every tense, in every attitude, In every possibility, still mine While the sun's pomp and pageant, sign to sign, Stately proceeded, mine not only so In the glamour of memory and austral glow Of ardour, but by image of my brow Stronger than sense, you are even here and now Miner, utterly mine, my sister and my wife, Mother of my children, mistress of my life!
O wild swan winging through the morning mist! The thousand thousand kisses that we kissed, The infinite device our love devised If by some chance its truth might be surprised, Are these all past? Are these to come? Believe me, There is no parting; they can never leave me. I have built you up into my heart and brain So fast that we can never part again. Why should I sing you these fantastic psalms When all the time I have you in my arms? Why? 'tis the murmur of our love that swells Earth's dithyrambs and ocean's oracles.
But this is dawn; my soul shall make its nest Where your sighs swing from rapture into rest Love's thurible, your tiger-lily breast.
TO LAYLAH
Life that is lost in dullard Dreams of the senses, go! Life, by the soul fair-coloured, Thy valiant trumpets blow!
Far from the world where love is lust, And work is pain, and wealth is dust, Rise on the wings of love, and soar To the sun's self, the eternal shore Where flaming streamers soar and roll. Angels to guard its secret soul, The warden where my love and I May walk to all eternity. Who dares to force the fiery gate May win our world inviolate. Children whose hearts are passionate; Maidens whose flesh is fair and fain, And men whose souls no senses stain, Come! These mad miles of flame of ours Are cool as springs and fresh as flowers.
And thou, sole star in my black firmament! Thou, night that wraps me close, thou, moon that glimmers Chaste, yet embraced, serenest element Lapping my life as the sea laps a swimmer's; Thou, by whose strength and purity and love I leave this land, attain to the above.
Come thou rose-red, break on my soul like dawn And gild my peaks, and bid their fountains flow; For in thine absence all their life withdrawn Congealed my being to a sterile snow, Snow fallen from some accursèd star to ban All the high hope and heritage of man.
Come thou, a gleaming goddess of pure pearl, Price of my homage to the great glad god! Come, saint and satyr praise alike the girl Who to my whole life put the period Of all fulfilment, whose prophetic breath Girds me with life, and garlands me with death.
Come, by thy magic in the rime and rhythm, Until the sea sways to the tender tune, And the winds whisper, and the leaves wave with them, The leaves wherethrough to look upon the moon. So that men hear me of the world within Secure from sorrow, sanctified from sin,
The world of stranger deities and loves Than haunted Ida, or were hidden in The Cretan bowers, the Elusinian groves, A world that trembles on thy violin, Eager to be—and then the curtain drops Just as thy music, with my heart's pulse, stops.
Nay! To this world of ours they shall not reach. My rimes are shadows dancing in the breeze By moonlight; there is no delight in speech Such as the silence of our heart's ease; But even thy shadow is itself a sun To the bleak universe of Everyone.
Then open sesame! The fairy cavern Of gold and gems, strange land of misty truth, As witches' eyes in a polluted tavern Glow with the vampire vanity of youth Stolen from maids, so let thine own eyes shine In this fantastic mystery of thine!
Thine eyes are love and truth and loyalty: Thine eyes are mystery unveiled to one. Let them ray forth incarnate deity Fit to assoil the eclipse-attainted sun! Let them point still my weather-beaten soul Infallibly the pathway of the pole!
LONG ODDS
How many million galaxies there are Who knows? and each had countless stars in it, And each rolls through eternities afar Beneath the threshold of the Infinite.
How is it that with all that space to roam I should have found this mote that spins and leaps In what unutterable sunlight, foam Of what unfathomable starry deeps
Who knows? And how this thousand million souls And half a thousand million souls of earth That swarm, all bound for unimagined goals, All pioneers of death enrolled at birth,
How were they swept away before my sight, That I might stand upon the single prick Of infinite space and time as infinite— Who knows? Yet here I stand, climacteric,
Having found you. Was it by fall of chance? Then what a stake against what odds I have won! Was it determined in God's ordinance? Then wondrous love and pity for His son!
LA FOIRE
I
LA GEANTE
Ah! je suis fou d'amour pour la grasse géante, Du rire sardonique et des regards hautains, Démangeaisons de l'âme et cancèr des reins! Les nichons sanglantes, la crevasse béante M'attirent, me collent à la noire et la puante Peau qui sent d'Afrique tout le velours malsain, De cruanté, de mort, d'eunuque, de putain, La nuit tragique, affreuse—et oh! mais enivrante!
Sale et salé, ton corps! Ton âme crapuleuse Vaut bien l'amphisboene des mares vénéneuses:— Que je m'y noye, sucer de tes impurs crachats L'immondice d'enfer, d'où démon, tu sortis Y perdre les enfants d'un Dieu anéanti Par sortilège noir de tes poilus sabbats!
II
LA NAINE
Monstre effrayant, plus vil que tout autre animal, Corps comique—écrasé d'un ventre de catin!— Chef d'œuvre de blasphème, enfanté du Malin, Insecte infecte, honteux et quand même banal, J'ajoute ton portrait au cortège infernal De mes amours pourris. Ton glabre et libertin Caresse vaut l'ivresse—oh! verse-moi le vin! Un tel carême fait oublier le carnaval.
C'est l'amour? le dégout? le luxure? la haine? Je n'en sais rien: le Dieu qui t'a difformé, naine, Me jette dans ton lit, me soumet, corps et âme, A tes pieds, à l'amour brutal et hystérique. Ce baiser à la fois ridicule et lubrique Evoque de Satan l'image—et le dictame!
STEPNEY
(Audi alteram partem)
Leonidas had hundreds to hold Thermopylae; So had good Sir Richard Grenville, the tiger of the sea Horatius had two comrades, and Rome and all its gods. We are worth the three together, if you come to talk of odds! For a day we held up London, and the cursèd robber crew, Though they were fifteen hundred, and we were only two. All day we fought the cowards, that dared not break the door. They had soldiers and policemen, all the tools of modern war, With their field-gun and their Maxim and the rifle and the shell; But they skulked with Winston Churchill, or we'd sent a few to hell! They hid themselves and volleyed, did the braves of Waterloo, They were only fifteen hundred, and Fritz and I were two. All day we fought the cowards, the Saxon and the Scot We gave them Hell and Tommy, as we answered shot for shot, Till a bullet found its billet, and poor Fritz lay dead at last. Then I lit the pile of shavings, nailed our colours to the mast. Ay! we left the red flag flying, the red flag of fire that flew, Though they were fifteen hundred, and we were only two. And beneath that glorious banner, in its folds of gold and red, I fought on (the lonely battle!) by the body of my dead. And the cowards still hung trembling, and the smoke poured hot and high, The brave black flag of Anarchy, a portent in the sky! Ay! we left the black flag flying, as behooves a man to do, For they were fifteen hundred, and we were only two. And the banner of destruction wraps me round with glory and awe— Here's a last clip of brave bullets for the bastard hounds of law! And here's a health to Freedom, and may man defend the right! And the red flag folds me closer—I have fought the last good fight. We died, we died unconquered—'tis the triumph of the true: Though they were fifteen hundred, and we were only two.
SORITES
My finger-nails grow on my fingers, and My fingers are fixed firmly to my hand. It is my hand that terminates my arm, And that sticks to my shoulder like a charm. My shoulder is a portion of my trunk. I hope no prostitute, however drunk, Would end the shocking sequence. Yet we find, Even in England, men of evil mind, Pornographers who love obscene details, Shameless enough to mention finger-nails.
LINES TO A YOUNG LADY VIOLINIST ON HER PLAYING IN A GREEN DRESS DESIGNED BY THE AUTHOR
Her dress clings like a snake of emerald And gold and ruby to her swaying shape; In its constraint she sways, entranced, enthralled, Her teeth set lest her rapture should escape The parted lips—Oh mouth of pomegranate! Is not Persephone with child of Fate?
What sunlit snows of rose and ivory Her breasts are, starting from the green, great moons Filling the blue night with white ecstasy Of rippling rhythms, of tumultuous tunes. Artemis tears the gauzes from her gorge, And violates Hephæstus at his forge.
Then the mad lightnings of her magic bow! They rave and roar upon the stricken wood, Swift shrieks of death, solemnities too slow For birth. Infernal lust of dragon-hued Devils, sublimest song of Angel choirs, Echo, and do not utter, her desires!
I am Danae in the shower of gold This Zeus flings forth, exhausted and possessed, Each atom of my being raped and rolled Beneath her car of music into rest Deeper than death, more desperate than life, The agony of primaeval slime at strife.
I am the ecstasy of infamy. Tossed like a meteor when the Gods play ball, Racked like Ixion, like Pasiphae Torn by the leaping life, with myrrh and gall My throat made bitter, I am crucified Like Christ with my dead selves on either side.
She stabs me to the heart with every thrust Of her wild bow, the pitiless hail of sound; Her smile is murder—the red lips of lust And the white teeth of death! Her eyes profound As hell, and frenzied with hell's love and hate, Gleam grey as God, glare steadier than fate.
She gloats upon my torture as I writhe. Her head falls back, her eyes turn back, she shakes And trembles. A sharp spasm takes the lithe Limbs, and her body with her spirit aches. The sweat breaks out on her; there bursts a flood Of shrieks; she bubbles at the mouth with blood.
As Satan fell from heaven, so she crashes Upon my corpse; one long ensanguine groan Ends her; the soul has burnt itself to ashes; The spirit is incorporate with its own, The abiding spirit of life, love, and light And liberty, fixed in the infinite.
There is the silence, there the night. Therein Nor space nor time nor being may intrude; There is no force to move, no fate to spin, Nor God nor Satan in the solitude. O Pagan and O Panic Pentecost! Lost! lost eternally!—for ever lost
THE TITANIC
Forth flashed the serpent streak of steel, Consummate crown of man's device; Down crashed upon an immobile And brainless barrier of ice. Courage! The grey gods shoot a laughing lip:— Let not faith founder with the ship!
We reel before the blows of fate; Our stout souls stagger at the shock. Oh! there is Something ultimate Fixed faster than the living rock. Courage! Catastrophe beyond belief Harden our hearts to fear and grief!
The gods upon the Titans shower Their high intolerable scorn; But no god knoweth in what hour A new Prometheus may be born. Courage! Man to his doom goes driving down; A crown of thorns is still a crown!
No power of nature shall withstand At last the spirit of mankind: It is not built upon the sand; It is not wastrel to the wind. Courage! Disaster and destruction tend To taller triumph in the end.
THRENODY
Poets die because they find Words too petty to express All the things they have in mind. Rime and rhythm only dress All their naked loveliness.
Poets die because their love Grows too great for life to stem; Death alone can soar above Limits that encircle them.
Poets die because—but why Should divine ones be divined? Let the sleeping secret lie! It suffices—poets die.
AT SEA
As night hath stars, more rare than ships In ocean, faint from pole to pole, So all the wonder of her lips Hints her innavigable soul.
Such lights she gives as guide my bark; But I am swallowed in the swell Of her heart's ocean, sagely dark, That holds my heaven and holds my hell.
In her I live, a mote minute Dancing a moment in the sun: In her I die, a sterile shoot Of nightshade in oblivion.
In her my elf dissolves, a grain Of salt cast careless in the sea; My passion purifies my pain To peace past personality.
Love of my life, God grant the years Confirm the chrism—rose to rood! Anointing loves, asperging tears In sanctifying solitude!
Man is so infinitely small In all these stars, determinate. Maker and moulder of them all, Man is so infinitely great!
DUMB!
Gabriel whispered in mine ear His archangelic poesie. How can I write? I only hear The sobbing murmur of the sea.
Raphael breathed and bade me pass His rapt evangel to mankind; I cannot even match, alas! The ululation of the wind.
The gross grey gods like gargoyles spit On every poet's holy head; No mustard-seed of truth or wit In those curst furrows, quick or dead!
A tithe of what I know would cleanse The leprosy of earth; and I— My limits are like other men's. I must live dumb, and dumb must die!
ATHANASIUS CONTRA DECANUM
I The Anglicans (whose curious cult Still entertains "Quicunque vult") Boasted a grave and pious Dean Ecclesiastically lean, Grey-haired and spectacled, sharp-nosed, Whose tract on "Truth," it was supposed, Had in its day done much to stem The tide of Error among them Who, though well-meaning, nearly ripped your Church up by wetting tusks on Scripture.
II Some men arrive at ruin's brink By dice and drugs and dogs and drink; Some drab, some dissipate, some drench Life through a weakness for a wench! Our Dean, immune from all of these, Reached threescore years in honoured ease, When, controversies being over, He found no thistles in his clover. Who sleeps too soft is slow to wake, And finds himself with limbs that ache. No wolves were prowling round his fold; He noticed he was getting old. Leisure, the vampire of the earth, Conceived by Satan, brought to birth A fiend, who said: "Respected Dean, You're not as young as you have been. The time is not far distant when Six other worthy clergymen Will put your body in a hole— And what will happen to your soul?"
III The blameless Dean conceived a doubt. As humble as he was devout, All he would utter was a trust That God was good as He was just. Though he had doubtless been the means Of saving others, even Deans (Since St. Paul said it) well may say "If I myself were cast away!" "Ah!" said the demon, "simple trust Becomes the ignorant, who must. But you have means whereby to test Your faith. I shall not let you rest, Till under cross-examination You prove your title to salvation. Let us begin—who runs may read— With Athanasius his creed."
IV He got through "neque confundentes" Gay as a boy is in his twenties. With sang-froid mingled with afflatus, He gladly uttered "Increatus." "Immensus" and "omnipotens" Were meat to his "divinior mens." "Tamen non tres dii" he smiled, "Sed unus Deus," suave and mild; Reciting thus the Creed verbatim To "Quia, sicut singillatim." He slapped his vernerable femur: "Religione prohibemur."
V "A haughty sprite," (said Solomon) "Goeth before destruction!" "Pride goes before a tumble!" we Learnt early, at our mother's knee. This was to crush the cleric's crest: "Filius a patre solo est." Incomprehensibly, to us, He boggled at "sed genitus."
VI The good Dean knitted noble brows That had been wont at ease to rouse Solution from the deepest lair Of whatsoever thoughts were there. Yet, here he stuck. If he were walking, "A patre solo" stopped him. Talking? "A patre solo" dammed the flood Of discourse, or it made it mud. "A patre solo" spoiled his sleep; "A patre solo" soured his sheep; "A patre solo" made him ill; His thought-chops burned on conscience' grill. The grave, acute, enlightened mind Contemporaries left behind, Yet was an abscess crammed with pus Round that sand-grain "sed genitus." "Non possum" (inquit) "tanquam volo" Credere hoc 'a patre solo.' " He corresponded for a year With doctors there and doctors here; He wrote to brethren near and far, To Ebor and to Cantuar; He even risked (half fear half hope) A private letter to the Pope. These creatures of a clotted church Left our inquirer in the lurch; There was not one could reconcile By ancient thought or modern style, Two knights, each fit to lay his foe low, "Genitus" and "a patre solo."
VII "A matre sola" were enough To make anatomists grow gruff! Yet he could postulate a post— "Colomba," scilicet "The Ghost." A thousand ways of thought he'd trod, Where God seem bread and bread seemed God. It did not ruffle up his plumes To think that one should open tombs. He thought it simple work to see That Three in One was one in Three. But he thought lost whoe'er affirms A contradiction in terms: "Without a mother" (was his reading) "'Begotten' merely means 'proceeding.' 'Begotten' to my mind implies Some anatomic qualities. Seed cannot sprout without a soil; Oil fills the cruse, the cruse holds oil. A Word begotten of I AM Is nothing but to milk the ram! We know of things whose modest mission Is to give life by simple fission. The hydra, too, where pools are flooding Gemmates, "i.e." gives birth by budding. The earliest forms of sex are seen Nor male nor female, but between. Do these 'beget,' may one affirm, In the strict meaning of the term? Even so, did we admit this right, God would appear hermaphrodite!"
VIII This thought so shocked the worthy Dean Black bile corrupted his machine. Limbo of many a likely lad, The Dean went melancholy mad. It is with sorrow like a sword Cutting my heart that I record, In this account I dare not "cook," The fatal form his madness took. By Athanasius still obsessed, He was The Father, and his quest To solve the problem that had turned His spirit's sword-edge, that had burned His mental fingers, by a means Fitter for schoolboys than for Deans. Theology has never lent Her sanction to Experiment!
IX At death his sanity's last glimpse Scattered the cohorts of the imps. Yet on all hope the door was slammed; He knew that he was surely damned. Despite his gaiters and his hat, He failed with "Ita" on the mat "De Trinitate sentiat." It said as plain as words can say "Haec est Fides Catholica," Adding a warning of the risk we All of us run: "Quam nisi quisque Fideliter crediderit, Non salvus esse poterit."
X Horribly frightened and alone, Before the awful judgment throne The poor Dean stood, the myriad eyes Of Wheels and of Activities, Glitterers, Fiery Serpents, Kings, Gods, Sons of Gods (and other things) Fixed on him. "Waste no time!" he cried, "I own me guilty. I denied— Or could at least not acquiesce In—Athanasius. I confess 'A patre solo' hard for throats. 'Genitus?"—put me with the goats!"
XI "Is this recorded?" asked the Lord. "No," said the angel. "Yet Thy sword Of wrath avenging is his meed. Alas! he played the goat indeed. The life Thou gavest him, full store Of opportunities galore, He wasted all and brought to naught. Ass-feeding thistles were his thought. He used his intellectual hammer On minor points of Latin grammar, Ruined an excellent digestion By brooding on a sterile question, And went beside himself through fretting About 'proceeding' and 'begetting.' "
XII Damnation's tones in thunder roll: Gehenna caught the accursed soul.
XIII "Satan," said God, "has always been Too clever for us with a Dean!"
THE SHIP
A MYSTERY PLAY
PERSONS OF THE MYSTERY
JULIA, a priestess JOANNA, a virgin John, high priest of the Sun JULIAN } his wardens JOVIAN A CHINAMAN AN ARAB A ZULU NU, a seafaring man THE YOUNG JOHN Chorus of men, women and children.
Scene I: The Temple of the Sun. Behind a veil is a column, on which are poised two intersecting disks, terrestrial and celestial, the cut-off part forming a true Vesica, fitting which is a shrine, capable of being opened and removed at will. The column is of gold and ivory. The veil is of azure blue.
Before this column, but without the veil, is a single candle by whose side stands the high priest John. He is of mature age, and has a black beard. He is dressed in robes of gold and scarlet embroidery. A crown is on his head; in one hand he holds a sceptre, in the other an orb. In front of him are two thrones, right and left, each with column and candle. In the first sits a youth in white garments, his head bare; his left hand holds a dagger. In the second sits a grown man in black garments, his head covered with a hood, and in his right hand a coin.
Steps covered with seaweed lead up to the stage from the orchestra (or auditorium), and the edge of the stage gives the appearance of a wharf. In the north are trees; in the south a heap of builder’s refuse.
Within the veil, one on each side the shrine, are two women, one (Julia) in a low-cut robe of green, broidered with roses, the skirt much slit, with a girdle of rose and gold, the other (Joanna) in a deep full robe of blue, covered completely with a thick veil of lace or silver gauze. This woman is slight and young, the other mature and robust.
Within the veil is heard a sixfold chime of bells. The warders spring to their feet.
JULIAN. Hail, Brother! Wake thy chorus of young voices, That men may know how innocence rejoices.
JOVIAN. So mote it be. And thou in turn divise Response of slumberous antiphonies.
First Semi-chorus. Night is nigh; the velvet veil Drawn on day the faery-frail! Sleep, O sleep, our angel eyes Woo thy kiss with symphonies Hushed to lowlier Lullabies!
Second Semi-chorus. Brethren, was the battle long? All’s assuaged for evensong. Here the God is in his shrine: Here the golden Bough divine; Here the dove incarnadine!
First Semi-chorus. Dream shall hint what manifold Mystery our life may hold.
Second Semi-chorus. Dreamless sleep shall arm the fray Fated for the future day.
JOANNA [Within]. Here is corn!
JULIA [Within]. Here is wine!
John [Within]. Life reborn! O deed divine! [A pause.] Till the morn I close the shrine.
JULIA [Within]. Softly splendid, to his rest Steals the godhead—to my breast!
JOANNA [Within]. Mute, magnificently male, Hidden in the holy veil, Thou and I prepare the rite Of this night of his delight.
John [Within]. Every brother to his ward! Every hand to hilt of sword! Every buckler to its arm, Lest the Holy One take harm! [Without, a clash of steel.
Chorus. The warrior lords are wake and ware, Three hundred blades of steel are bare. Their threescore corporals stand steady. Five captains, all alert and ready, Watch, lion-heard, against surprise, As each man had an hundred eyes.
[Again, the clash of steel. Then music played (JULIA and ORCHESTRA), growing ever softer. As it fades away, enter from the trees three men: a Chinese armed with a scourge and a rope, a red man, like an ARAB, with a hammer and three nails, and a warrior chief, like a ZULU, with an assegai. They move somewhat furtively, and as if afraid. The Chinese accosts JOVIAN.
Chinese. I am the dragon brother of your priest, And we are come from north and south and east To build your god a new and nobler shrine.
JOVIAN. Give me the sign. [Done, each gripping the other’s throat. The sign is strict, averred. Hast thou the holy word? [Whispered. The word is rightly spoken. Hast thou the secret token? [Given, each extending the forefinger and striking it against that of the other. The token is in order. Pass to my brother warder! [They pass over to JULIAN.
ARAB. I am the camel brother of your priest, And we are come from north and south and east To build your God a new and nobler shrine.
JULIAN. Give me the sign. [Done, each striking his breast five times with clenched hand. The sign is strict, averred. Hast thou the holy word? [Whispered. The word is rightly spoken. Hast thou the secret token? [Given, each making a wide sweep with the arm, clapping hand to hand, and then clasping. The token is right. All Hail! Pass to the veil! [They pass on. The black man enters, his companions pulling aside the veil.
ZULU. I am thy brother, priest. From north and south and east We come to build a shrine Nobler and newer than thine.
Chinese. These ropes can bind; this scourge My myriad slaves can urge.
ARAB. This hammer and nails suffice To strike forth fire from ice.
ZULU. I raise my spear, and fifty kings accord Their service to their warrior liege lord. [John remains silent and does not move.
Chinese. Come, let us enter to rebuild the shrine!
John. Give me the sign. [Done, the ZULU moving his hand to the priest’s knee. John makes no motion. The sign is wrong.
ARAB. Not strict averred? I have the word. [Whispers.
John. The word is wrong.
ZULU. Not rightly spoken? I have the token. [Gives it by raising his hand and lowering it, then seeking to grasp John’s hand. John does not move.
John. The token is wrong. Ye may not pass.
Chinese. Thou must, alas! [The Chinese strips John of his robes, all but the white under-robe, and binds him to the column. He scourges him to the music of JULIA until the white robe is red with blood.
Chinese. Give me the secret of the shrine!
John. It is not mine. [The ARAB impales John by hands and feet with his three nails.
ARAB. Give me the secret of the shrine!
John. It is not mine. [The ZULU drives his spear into the body of John.
ZULU. Give me the secret of the shrine.
John. It is not mine. [He dies.
Chorus [without] As it was spoken of the earth, And as the ocean witnesseth, That which the winter brought to birth Finds in the spring its death. Now that the word is come to pass That bone is dust and flesh is grass, Let us mix our acclamations Of jubilance and lamentations!
Are not good and evil one Before the challenge of the sun? Shall necessity relax The brazen fury of her features, And her steel scimitar turn to wax For the complaining of her creatures?
The Lord is slain; let us lament The Word made void, the Work in vain. Fulfilling their obscure event, Let us rejoice; the Lord is slain.
ZULU. [to the warders]. Take down the body. [JULIAN and JOVIAN put out their candles and come forward and unloose John, laying him between their columns. JULIAN covers him with a cloth, and JOVIAN throws a sprig of acacia upon it.
[To the women] Open us the shrine!
JULIA. The secret is not yours or mine! [She and JOANNA pull open the doors of the Vesica. A blaze of light sends the three ruffians reeling forth. They fly distracted and blinded about the Temple, and ultimately sink down among the rubble in the south. [JULIA and JOANNA have let go the doors at once. These spring back and leave the stage lighted only by the single candle of the high priest.
A Voice from the Shrine. Avenge the rape! Let none escape!
A Voice from the Extreme West behind the Audience. The heavens have let loose the fountains Of flood upon the mountains!
JULIAN [at wharf]. Ho, Nu! Ho, Nu! Let no man leave the quay Without the tokens of the true degree!
NU [below]. I hear and I obey. What cargo for to-day?
Chorus. There is no gold upon the earth To pay an hundredth of its worth. There is no treasure of sapphire, No hidden ruby to compare; No diamond hath illustrious fire Beside the burden that we bear; Nor where the waves of ocean whirl Hath any cavern such a pearl.
Not heaven in all its happiest hours Hath such a gracious gift as ours. In it all principles in here; To it all elements conspire; From it all energies revere Of it the inscrutable desire! Mankind, matured from myriad wombs. Is but the garden where it blooms.
JOVIAN. Oh, but too precious is the burden we bear. It is the God’s own priest, the shrine’s sole heir, Whose corpse must fare into the nether air.
NU. [mounting the steps] I have no ship worthy of such a freight.
The Voice from the Shrine. Ay, but thou hast.
NU. Most ancient is her date. And many a sea hath battered her, and time Hath eaten her, I fear; corrosive crime Of the wild aeon. Ho! thou wife o’ the waters! Our three strong sons and our three stalwart daughters. Bid them discover if the old ship’s sound!
The voice from the west. Beware! Beware! the Lords of Heaven confound The cities, and their habitants are drowned.
JULIAN and JOVIAN. We go; our master’s body must be tended. [They go to the body and occupy themselves with it.
Chinese. O that our miserable lives were ended!
ARAB. Curse this right hand the hammer that extended!
ZULU. This damned spear that holy heart that rended!
Chinese. They hunt us for our lives.
ARAB. The soldiers search. Now our fate laughs and leaves us in the lurch.
ZULU. Can we not hide across the sea?
Chinese. Who will give aid to such as we?
ARAB. Come, let us grope eternity!
ZULU. Hate and despair and guilt still dog our path.
Chinese. For misery is murder’s aftermath. [Fearful and obscure music. They grope as blind men about the stage on all fours, and reach the wharf.
The Voice from the West. Still on the mountains pour the avenging rains. And still the fierce flood swallows up the plains.
The Voice from Below. Father, O father Nu! O father Nu! What miracle is this—tremendous-true! The old ship is grown new!
The Voice from the Shrine. How should a ship grow old Whose virgin timbers hold Mine awful ark of gold?
ZULU. Do I hear one speak of ships?
Chinese. Listen, my lord, to these, no lying lips.
ARAB. Take us aboard; we sail where hunger grips No more three poor blind beggar men.
NU. [aside]. May be These are the assassin three! [Aloud] Have ye the tokens of the true degree? [They cower.
Chinese. Ah, then, hope fails for ever!
ARAB. Let us hide Beyond the borders of this treacherous tide; Or it may steal upon us as we sleep.
ZULU. Would we were dead! Yet life is worth a leap.
Chinese. O God, eternally to grope This desert without hope!
ARAB. Oh, but this flight without faith Is an eternal death.
ZULU. Hate is a hell sharper and deadlier Than all the weapons of the torturer. [They regain the heap of rubble.
JULIAN. All is prepared. Seek then once more with me The traces of the fatal three! [He finds the CHINAMAN. Here is the first of the villains. [To shrine] Speak What vengeance we shall wreak!
JOVIAN. Foulest phantom flowers of fear. From his soul like serpents shoot!
The Voice from the Shrine. Cut his throat from ear to ear! Tear his tongue out by the root! Throw the body in the dark A cable from high-water mark! [This is done, the body being thrown from the wharf.
The Voice from the West. The trees are covered: the rain streams Upon the screes, and screams!
The Voice from Below. The water kisses the ship’s keel!
JOVIAN. Out with the steel! [He seizes the ARAB.] Here is the second ruffian: [To shrine] Say What price his deed must pay!
JULIAN. Hear the tongue that was so glib Stammer, spit its crazy wrath!
The Voice from the Shrine. Cut his breast from rib to rib! Tear his heart out, fling it forth Where the vultures may enhearse Its horror from the Universe. [This is done in the west, but above wharf.
The Voice from the West. The hills are covered; the rain shrieks Yet fiercer on the peaks.
The Voice from Below. The water lifts the ship; she rights.
JULIAN. Ah! Foulest of foul sights! Here is the third and greatest villain. [He seizes the ZULU.] [To shrine] Saith Our God the manner of his death?
JOVIAN. Black to green grows horror’s blank Sickening from the stinking soul!
The Voice from the Shrine. Cut his navel, flank to flank! Tear the bowels out; be the whole Burnt to ashes on the centre! Black oblivion blot him! Ban Every trace that might re-enter Any memory of man! [The sentence is executed.
The Voice from the West. The mountains are all covered; the rain roars Now on a sea that hath no shores!
The Voice from Below. Haste! the ship slips into the foam. Haste! leave the hapless home! [JULIAN and JOVIAN bear the body of John down the steps of the wharf, and so out, either into orchestra or at the back of theatre. They are followed by JULIA and JOANNA, who bear the sacred Vesica in their arms.
NU. Cast off! three sons bend to the larboard oars, And three strong daughters man the starboard thwart. My wife shall spy, while I shall steer for, shores Worthy to welcome home our Argonaut. [JULIA plays music. The wind is heard to rise and the waves to wash, until a gust blows out the last candle on the stage, when the curtain falls. The bell tolls twelve strokes. In the distance one hears the chant of the sailors, at first strong and near, gradually dying away. Through the tempest, toward the dark, Ploughs the fate-fulfilling bark, Laden with the sacred ark.
All the earth is drenched and drowned. Every other ship’s unsound: We alone are homeward bound.
Harnessed to eternity, Life’s sole sanctuary, we Breast alone the winter sea.
We shall sight the surging shore, Slack the sail and ship the oar, Hear the anchor rattle and roar.
Through the tempest, toward the dark, Ploughs the fate-fulfilling bark, Laden with the sacred ark. [JULIA’S music, which has grown fainter and more distant, now finally fails.
Scene II: A Woodland Scene: Springtime. On a mound in the midst is the barren tree, with two main branches right and left. On each side of the same a flat stone.
[The scene is in darkness; after a little slow and very faint and hesitating music, the voices of women are heard. They are seated on the stones, their attitudes expressing woe and anxiety.
JOANNA. Sister, we touch the hour of fear. The midmost murk is near.
JULIA. There is no sign, no mark To sunder dark from dark.
JOANNA. There is no mark nor sign Of our lost shrine.
JULIA. Persuasion of the pit Made us abandon it.
JOANNA. Nay, by inscrutable Law of all Life it fell.
JULIA. Is that the light?
JOANNA. The boon Of the pure moon?
[Far above glimmers a crescent, and sheds a wan light. A horrible discord arises: the howling of wolves, the moaning of dogs, the wailing of cats, the crying of jackals. And in the half light appear first marsh-lights wandering, then giant illusions of gods and men, all of which disappear in turn, their evanishment awaking a peal of mocking laughter. The women shrink into themselves, clinging to the tree, and mingling their lamentations with the hellish concert. Suddenly JOANNA, drawing herself up, points to the front of stage, where is a circular pool, whose waters become perturbed. The noises die away. There is a noise of chanting.
Chorus from Beneath. Dreams diluvian daunt the daring daughters That, devout in the hour of wastrel waters, Hither bore from its house of eld the shrine. Dreams, and devils, and things of death together, Chorus glorious, wild as wind and weather, Mocking; Shine, O our God! Lord God, now shine!
Is the symbol of Life indeed departed? Hath the augur indeed found bloodless-hearted Firstling lamb, and the dove without entrails? Is the hope of the world for ever sunken? Was the dream of us dark, demented, drunken? All in vain are we vowed before the veils?
Were we false to the faith? Did hope desert us? Was not leonine love the grace that girt us? Why then bore we the shrine across the sea? Wait! the moment of midmost murk discloses Dawn, deep laden the winds of March with roses. Groans of travail announce the babe to be.
Now the waves of the pool are stirred; the ocean Labours; Earth is awake; a murmured motion Marks the end of the tragic theme. Behold How the garden of Pan with subtle laughter Shakes, how Bacchus and Ceres, leaping after, Link extravagant limbs of rose and gold! [In silence, lastly, a great Beetle emerges from the pool, holding in his mandibles the sacred Vesica! He advances, while the women prostrate themselves, and affixes it to the Tree, just above the fork of the boughs. [JULIA plays a music still slow and sad, but with a central core of faith, hope and love.
JOANNA. Eternal home of light and love, Of life and liberty, Thou shrine of seraph, dome of dove, Soul of the sacred Tree, Ark of the sanctuary, Cup Wherein God’s blood is treasured up! From the abyss thou reappearest, Thou the divinest and the dearest!
Moon of our love, most wondrous womb, Mount of the Cave, red rose— Mighty as light, transcend the tomb, Thou tomb of all our woes! White moon, pale moon, chaste moon, arise Upon our smitten sanctuaries! Thou hast passed through the aquarian rages, Thou ship of all the sages! [JULIA’S music swells to a pæan. Above the tree is seen a rainbow.
JULIA. The seven colours glow upon the murk. This is the midmost moment of the Work.
JOANNA. Hark! Now the warders bring the bier Of their dead Master here.
Chorus of Unseen Guardians, as in Scene I. [The clash of steel accompanies this chant. Blessed are they that bear the bier Unto the house of rest; Through tempest toil and flooding fear, From the wild waves o’ th’ west! Blessed are they whose strength and faith Pilot the ship whose name is Death!
Advancing ever to the east, The holy pilgrims pace. To the live God comes the dead priest To front Him face to face, If haply He reverse the doom And tear its trophy from the tomb. [The warders now approach and lay the body of the priest, still in its shroud, at the foot of the Tree.
JULIA. Now be ye witnesses of Truth! Here let love’s lust yield youth! [She raises her hands to heaven.
JOANNA [comes forward and invokes at the shrine]. Now let my lord declare His power This equinoctial hour! If there be virtue in the dance, And live abide within the lance, And if the wine within the cup Be the right draught for gods to sup— Then be my sister’s music dowered With answering song, and roses showered! [JULIA dances and plays around the corpse. The orchestra joins after the first few bars, and innumerable roses fall from heaven. A pause, while they watch.
JULIA. Alas! no life reposes Beneath the rain of roses!
JOANNA. Oh then, beneath the vaulted Dome be our priest exalted! [The two women and the warders life the corpse, and stand it against the tree, its arms extended on the boughs.
JOANNA. Now be ye witnesses of truth! Here let love’s lust yield youth!
JULIA. Uncover, uncover the face of our lover! He sleeps, but the woe of the winter is over! With tears let us water the root of the tree! With laughter be bold to awaken the stem! Thy darling, thy daughter is calling to thee! Thy warders uphold thee, make answer to them! Let the bud thrill with blood. Let the force of the flood Of the sap thereof lap every anther unseen! Let the shower of our power bring rebirth to the flower, And the one light of sunlight break scarlet and green!
JOANNA. Alas, he does not stir! Sorrowful, sinister Is this day’s name, The hour of shame!
JULIA. Behold! Behold! Rose breaks, and gold! [Dawn breaks in the wood. And see the cold white pall Funereal fall! [The wrappings fall from the corpse, and the youth John is seen beardless and smiling. He is dressed in the crown and robes of his father.
The Young John. I am that I am, the flame Hidden in the sacred ark. I am the unspoken name I the unbegotten spark.
I am He that ever goeth, Being in myself the Way; Known, that yet no mortal knoweth, Shewn, that yet no mortal sheweth, I, the child of night and day. I am never-dying youth. I am Love, and I am Truth.
I am the creating Word, I the author of the aeon; None but I have ever heard Echo in the empyrean Plectron of the primal paean! I am the eternal one Winged and white, the flowering rod, I the fountain of the sun, Very God of very God!
I am he that lifteth up Life, and flingeth it afar; I have filled the crystal cup; I have sealed the silver star. I the wingless God that flieth Through my firmamental fane, I am he that daily dieth, And is daily born again.
In the sea my father lieth, Wept by waters, lost for ever Where the waste of woe replieth: Naught and nowhere! Naught and never! I that serve as once he served, I that shine as once he shone, I must swerve as he has swerved, I must go as he has gone.
He begat me; in my season I must such a son beget, Suffer too the triple treason, Setting as my father set. These my witnesses and women— These shall dare the dark again, Find the sacred ark to swim in The remorseless realm of rain.
Flowers and fruits I bring to bless you, Cakes of corn, and wealth of wine; With my crown will I caress you, With my music make you mine. Though I perish, I preserve you; Through my fall, ye rise above: Ruling you, your priest, I serve you, Being life, and being love.
JOANNA. Here is corn!
JULIA. Here is wine!
The Young John. Life reborn, The Deed Divine! [He consecrates, and partakes of, the sacrament. The two warders, kneeling, clasp his knees, and the two women support his arms. A sixfold chime of bells. He invokes the God in the shrine.
The Young John. Thou, who art I, beyond all I am, Who hast no nature and no name, Who art, when all but thou are gone, Thou, centre and secret of the Sun, Thou, hidden spring of all things known And unknown, Thou aloof, alone, Thou, the true fire within the reed Brooding and breeding, source and seed Of life, love, liberty, and light, Thou beyond speech and beyond sight, Thee I invoke, abiding one, Thee, centre and secret of the Sun, And that most holy mystery Of which the vehicle am I! Appear, most awful and most mild, As it is lawful, to thy child!
Chorus. So from the Father to the Son The Holy Spirit is the norm: Male-female, quintessential, one, Man-being veiled in Woman-form, Glory and worship in the Highest, Thou Dove, mankind that deifiest, Being that race—most royally run To spring sunshine through winter storm! Glory and worship be to Thee, Sap of the world-ash, wonder-tree!
First Semi-chorus. Glory to Thee from gilded tomb! Glory to Thee from waiting womb!
Second Semi-chorus. Glory to Thee from virgin vowed! Glory to Thee from earth unploughed!
First Semi-chorus. Glory to Thee, true Unity Of the eternal Trinity!
Second Semi-chorus. Glory to Thee, thou sire and dam And self of I am that I am!
First Semi-chorus. Glory to Thee, beyond all term, Thy spring of sperm, thy seed and germ!
Second Semi-chorus. Glory to Thee, eternal Sun, Thou One in Three, thou Three in One!
Chorus. Glory and worship be to Thee, Sap of the world-ash, wonder-tree! [He raises his hands to the shrine, and opens it. A rosy light streams thence and fills the holy place, while the white Dove that was enshrined therein descends upon his head. The tree blossoms into leaf, flower, and fruit.
THE CURTAIN FALLS
Beneath the vine tree and the fig Where mortal cares may not intrude, On melon and on sucking pig Although their brains are bright and big Banquet the Great White Brotherhood.
Among the fountains and the trees That fringed his garden's glowing border, At sunset walked, and, in the breeze With his disciples, took his ease An Adept of the Holy Order.
"My children," Said the holy man, "Once more I'm willing to unmask me. This is my birthday; and my plan Is to bestow on you (I can) Whatever favour you may ask me."
Nor curiosity nor greed Brought these disciples to disaster; For, being very wise indeed, The adolescents all agreed To ask His Secret of the Master.
With the "aplomb" and "savior faire" Peculiar to Eastern races, He took the secret then and there (What, is not lawful to declare), And thrust it rudely in their faces.
"A filthy insult!" screamed the first; The second smiled, "Ingenious blind!" The youngest neither blessed nor cursed, Contented to believe the worst— That He had spoken all his mind!
The second earned the name of prig, The first the epithet of prude; The third, as merry as a grig, On melon and on sucking pig Feasts with the Great White Brotherhood.
RETURN
Back to the rain and the cold In the city of clamours and lies, The city of dung and gold Where virtue is bought and sold, And honour sickens and dies, Where faith is broken and lost, And hope is smothered in mire, And truth is trampled and tossed About in the fog and the frost, And hate and envy and lust Gnash their teeth, and mistrust Eats the heart of desire.
Why should I leave the land Of the sun and the stainless blue, Where life heaves slow as the sand, And love like a palm is fanned By breezes of dawn and dew? Where morning is clear and bright And evening starry and clear, Where the eye and the hand say truth, And life is flushed with youth, And the virgin moon rules night, And the warrior sun flings light From the blade of his buoyant spear?
The heart of the desert keeps A thousand treasures of pearls The heart of the desert leaps Beneath her secular sleeps With dates and water and girls. And some are bitter and hard, And some are soft and sweet, And some are malicious and marred, And some are cruel and charred, And some are light and allure And some are perfect and pure— But all are good to eat.
But north, where the grey fog curls, Over the stagnant Thames Is the pearl of all pearls, The girl of all God's girls, Her soul a glory of gems; Virtue and wisdom and truth, Loyalty honour and wit, Courage and beauty and youth, Love—they are mine, good sooth!— Back from the lands of gold To the city of drizzle and cold!— And that is the devil of it!
THE FOUR WINDS
The South wind said to the palms: My lovers sing me psalms; But are they as warm as those That Laylah's lover knows?
The North wind said to the firs: I have my worshippers; But are they as keen as hers?
The East wind said to the cedars: My friends are no seceders; But is their faith to me As firm as his faith must be?
The West wind said to the yews: My children are pure as dews; But what of her lover's muse?
So to spite the summer weather The four winds howled together.
But a great Voice from above Cried: What do you know of love?
Do you think all nature worth The littlest life upon earth?
I made the germ and the ant, The tiger and elephant.
In the least of these there is more Than your elemental war.
And the lovers whom ye slight Are precious in my sight.
Peace to your mischief-brewing! I love to watch their wooing.
Of all this Laylah heard Never a word.
She lay beneath the trees With her lover at her knees.
He sang of God above And of love.
She lay at his side Well satisfied,
And at set of sun They were one.
Before they slept her pure smile curled; "God bless all lovers in the World!"
And so say I the self-same word; Nor doubt God heard.
BOO TO BUDDHA!
So it is eighteen years, Helena, since we met! A season so endears, Nor you nor I forget The fresh young faces that once clove In that most fiery dawn of love.
We wandered to and fro, Who knew not how to woo, Those eighteen years ago, Sweetheart, when I and you Exchanged high vows in heaven's sight That scarce survived a summer's night.
What scourge smote from the stars? What madness from the moon? That night we broke the bars Was quintessential June, When you and I beneath the trees Bartered our bold virginities.
Eighteen—ears, months, or hours? Time is a tyrant's toy! Eternal are the flowers! We are but girl and boy Yet—since love leapt as swift to-night As it had never left the light!
For fiercer from the South Still flames your cruel hair, And Trojan Helen's mouth Still not so ripe and rare As Helena's—nor love nor youth So leaps with lust or thrills with truth.
Helena, still we hold Flesh firmer, still we mix Black hair with hair as gold. Life has but served to fix Our hearts; love lingers on the tongue, And who loves once is always young.
The stars are still the same; The changeful moon endures; Come without fear or shame, And draw my mouth to yours! Youth fails, however flesh be fain; Manhood and womanhood attain.
Life is a string of pearls, And you the first I strung. You left—first flower of girls!— Life lyric on my tongue, An indefatigable dance, An inexhaustible romance!
Blush of love's dawn, bright bud That bloomed for my delight, First blossom of my blood, Burn in that blood to-night! Helena, Helena, fiercely fresh, Your flesh flies fervent to my flesh.
What sage can dare impugn Man's immortality? Our godhead swims, immune From death and destiny. Ignored the bubble in the flow Of love eighteen short years ago!
Time—I embrace all time As my arm rings your waist. Space—you surpass, sublime, As, taking me, we taste Omnipotence, sense slaying sense, Soul slaying soul, omniscience.
I adore Thee, King of Evil, By the body Thou hast fashioned In the likeness of a devil. By its purity impassioned I adore Thee, King of Evil!
I adore Thee, Lord of Malice, By the soul that Thou hast moulded Lovely as a lily-chalice To the sombre sun unfolded. I adore Thee, Lord of Malice!
By its thirst, the cruel craving For things infinite, unheard-of, Dreams devouring and depraving, Songs no God may guess a word of, Songs of crime and songs of craving—
By the drear eyes of the devil Bleak and sterile as they glitter I adore Thee, King of Evil, With these lips, as dry and bitter As the drear eyes of the devil!
I adore Thee, I invoke Thee, I abase myself before Thee, By the spells that once awoke the Lust of Chaos I adore Thee, I adore Thee, I invoke Thee!
THE MESSAGE OF THUBA MLEEN
I Far beyond Utnar Vehi, far beyond The Hills of Hap, Sits the great Emperor crowned with diamond, Twitching the rosary in his lap— The rosary whose every head well-conned With sleek unblinking bliss Was once the eyeball of an unborn child of his.
II He drank the smell of living blood, that hissed On flame-white steel. He tittered while his mother’s limbs were kissed By the fish-hooks on the Wheel That shredded soul and shape, more fine than mist Is torn by the bleak wind That blows from Kragua and the unknown lands behind.
III As the last flesh was flicked, he wearied; slaves From bright Bethmoora Sprang forward with carved bowls whose crimson craves Green wine of hashish, black wine of datura, Like the Yann’s earlier and its latter waves! These wines soothed well the spleen Of the Desert’s bastard brother Thuba Mleen.
IV He drank, and eyed the slaves. “Mwass, Dragicho, Xu-Xulgulara, Saddle your mules!” he whispered, “ride full slow Unto Bethmoora And bid the people of the city know That that most ancient snake, The Crone of Utnar Vehi, is awake.”
V Thus twisted he his dagger in the hearts Of those two slaves That bore him wine; for they knew well the arts Of Utnar Vehi—what the grey crone craves— Knew how their kindred in the vines and marts Of bright Bethmoora, thus accurst, Would rush to the mercy of the Desert’s thirst.
VI I would that Mana-Yood-Sushai would lean And listen, and hear The tittering, thin-bearded, epicene Dwarf, fringed with fear, Of the Desert’s bastard brother Thuba Mleen! For he would wake, and scream Aloud the Word to annihilate the dream.
AT BORD-AN-NUS
El Arabi! El Arabi! Burn in thy brilliance, mine own! O Beautiful! O Barbarous! Seductive as a serpent is That poises head and hood, and makes his body tremble to the drone Of tom-tom and of cymbal wooed by love's assassin sorceries! El Arabi! El Arabi! The moon is down; we are alone; May not our mouths meet, madden, mix, melt in the starlight of a kiss? El Arabi!
There by the palms, the desert's edge, I drew thee to my heart and held Thy shy slim beauty for a splendid second; and fell moaning back, Smitten by Love's forked flashing rod—as if the uprooted mandrake yelled! As if I had seen God, and died! I thirst! I writhe upon the rack! El Arabi! El Arabi! It is not love! I am compelled By some fierce fate, a vulture poised, heaven's single ominous speck of black. El Arabi!
There in the lonely bordj across the dreadful lines of sleeping men, Swart sons of the Sahara, thou didst writhe slim, sinuous and swift, Warning me with a viper's hiss—and was not death upon us then, No bastard of thy maiden kiss? God's grace, the all-surpassing gift! El Arabi! El Arabi! Yea, death is man's Elixir when Life's pale wine foams and splashes over his imagination's rim! El Arabi!
El Arabi! El Arabi! witch-amber and obsidian Thine eyes are, to ensorcell me, and leonine thy male caress. Will not God grant us Paradise to end the music Earth began? We play with loaded dice! He cannot choose but raise right hand to bless. El Arabi! El Arabi! Great is the love of God and man While I am trembling in thine arms, wild wanderer of the wilderness! El Arabi!
ΛΙΝΟΣ ΙΣΙΔΟΣ
Lo! I lament. Fallen is the sixfold Star: Slain is Asar. O twinned with me in the womb of Night! O son of my bowels to the Lord of Light! O man of mine that hast covered me From the shame of my virginity! Where art thou? Is it not Apep thy brother, The snake in my womb that am thy mother, That hath slain thee by violence girt with guile, And scattered thy limbs on the Nile?
Lo! I lament. I have forged a whirling Star: I seek Asar. O Nepti, sister! Arise in the dusk From thy chamber of mystery and musk! Come with me, though weary the way, To bring back his life to the rended clay! See! are not these the hands that wove Delight, and these the arms that strove With me? And these the feet, the thighs That were lovely in mine eyes?
Lo! I lament. I gather in my car Thine head, Asar And this — is this not the trunk he rended? But—oh! oh! oh!—the task transcended, Where is the holy idol that stood For the god of thy queen's beatitude? Here is the tent—but where is the pole? Here is the body—but where is the soul? Nepti, sister, the work is undone For lack of the needed One!
Lo! I lament. There is no god so far As mine Asar! There is no hope, none, in the corpse, in the tomb. But these—what are these that war in my womb? There is vengeance and triumph at last of Maat In Ra-Hoor-Khut and in Hoor-pa-Kraat! Twins they shall rise; being twins they are one, The Lord of the Sword and the Son of the Sun! Silence, coeval colleague of the Voice, The plumes of Amoun—rejoice!
Lo! I rejoice. I heal the sanguine scar Of slain Asar. I was the Past, Nature the Mother. He was the Present, Man my brother. Look to the Future, the Child—oh paean The Child that is crowned in the Lion-Aeon! The sea-dawns surge an billow and break Beneath the scourge of the Star and the Snake. To my lord I have borne in my womb deep-vaulted This babe for ever exalted!
PAN TO ARTEMIS
Uncharmable charmer Of Bacchus and Mars In the sounding rebounding Abyss of the stars! O virgin in armour, Thine arrows unsling In the brilliant resilient First rays of the spring!
By the force of the fashion Of love, when I broke Through the shroud, through the cloud, Through the storm, through the smoke, To the mountain of passion Volcanic that woke— By the rage of the mage I invoke, I invoke!
By the midnight of madness:— The lone-lying sea, The swoon of the moon, Your swoon into me, The sentinel sadness Of cliff-clinging pine, That night of delight You were mine, you were mine!
You were mine, O my saint, My maiden, my mate, By the might of the right Of the night of our fate. Though I fall, though I faint, Though I char, though I choke, By the hour of our power I invoke, I invoke!
By the mystical union Of fairy and faun, Unspoken, unbroken— The dust to the dawn!— A secret communion Unmeasured, unsung, The listless, resistless, Tumultuous tongue!—
O virgin in armour, Thine arrows unsling, In the brilliant resilient First rays of the spring! No Godhead could charm her, But manhood awoke— O fiery Valkyrie, I invoke, I invoke!
THE INTERPRETER
Mother of Light, and the Gods! Mother of Music, awake! Silence and speech are at odds; Heaven and Hell are at stake. By the Rose and the Cross I conjure; I constrain by the Snake and the Sword; I am he that is sworn to endure—Bring us the word of the Lord!
By the brood of the Bysses of Brightening, whose God was my sire; By the Lord of the Flame and Lightning, the King of the Spirits of Fire; By the Lord of the Waves and the Waters, the King of the Hosts of the Sea, The fairest of all of whose daughters was mother to me;
By the Lord of the Winds and the Breezes, the king of the Spirits of Air, In whose bosom the infinite ease is that cradled me there; By the Lord of the Fields and the Mountains, the King of the Spirits of Earth That nurtured my life at his fountains from the hour of my birth;
By the Wand and the Cup I conjure; by the Dagger and Disk I constrain; I am he that is sworn to endure; make thy music again! I am Lord of the Star and the Seal; I am Lord of the Snake and the Sword; Reveal us the riddle, reveal! Bring us the word of the Lord!
As the flame of the sun, as the roar of the sea, as the storm of the air, As the quake of the earth—let it soar for a boon, for a bane, for a snare, For a lure, for a light, for a kiss, for a rod, for a scourge, for a sword— Bring us thy burden of bliss—Bring us the word of the Lord!
THE BUDDHIST
There never was a face as fair as yours, A heart as true, a love as pure and keen. These things endure, if anything endures. But, in this jungle, what high heaven immures Us in its silence, the supreme serene Crowning the dagoba, what destined die Rings on the table, what resistless dart Strike me I love you; can you satisfy The hunger of my heart!
Nay; not in love, or faith, or hope is hidden The drug that heals my life; I know too well How all things lawful, and all things forbidden Alike disclose no pearl upon the midden, Offer no key to unlock the gate of Hell. There is no escape from the eternal round, No hope in love, or victory, or art. There is no plumb-line long enough to sound The abysses of my heart!
There no dawn breaks; no sunlight penetrates Its blackness; no moon shines, nor any star. For its own horror of itself creates Malignant fate from all benignant fates, Of its own spite drives its own angel afar. Nay; this is the great import of the curse That the whole world is sick, and not a part. Conterminous with its own universe The horror of my heart!
THE THIEF-TAKER
Saïd Jellal ud din bin Messaoud Trusted to Allah for his daily food; And so with favour was the Saint anointed That never yet had he been disappointed.
One day this pious person wished to shave His head; a sly and sacrilegious knave Passed; when the good man would resume his prayer, Alas! his turban was no longer there.
In rushed Mohammed, Hassan, and Husein: “See! there he goes, the bastard of a swine. Hasten, and catch him!” But the good man went With melancholy pace and sad intent
Unto the burying-ground without the wall; And there he sat, stern and funereal, Wrapped in deep thought from any outward sense, A monument of earnest patience!
“Sire!” (a disciple dared at length to say) “That wicked person took another way.” “Wide is the desert,” said the saintly seer: “But this is certain, that he must come here.”
ADELA
Venezia, May 10th, 1910
Jupiter's foursquare blaze of gold and blue Rides on the moon, a lilac conch of pearl, As if the dread god, charioted anew Came conquering, his amazing disk awhirl To war down all the stars. I see him through The hair of this mine own Italian girl, Adela That bends her face on mine in the gondola!
There is scarce a breath of wind on the lagoon. Life is absorbed in its beatitude, A meditative mage beneath the moon Ah! should we come, a delicate interlude, To Campo Santo that, this night of June, Heals for awhile the immitigable feud? Adela! Your breath ruffles my soul in the gondola!
Through maze on maze of silent waterways, Guarded by lightless sentinel palaces, We glide; the soft plash of the oar, that sways Our life, like love does, laps—no softer seas Swoon in the bosom of Pacific bays! We are in tune with the infinite ecstasies, Adela! Sway with me, sway with me in the gondola!
They hold us in, these tangled sepulchres That guard such ghostly life. They tower above Our passage like the cliffs of death. There stirs No angel from the pinnacles thereof. All broods, all breeds. But immanent as Hers That reigns is this most silent crown of love, Adela That broods on me, and is I, in the gondola.
They twist, they twine, these white and black canals, Now stark with lamplight, now a reach of Styx. Even as our love—raging wild animals Suddenly hoisted on the crucifix To radiate seraphic coronals, Flowers, flowers—O let our light and darkness mix, Adela, Goddess and beast with me in the gondola!
Come! though your hair be a cascade of fire, Your lips twin snakes, your tongue the lightning flash, Your teeth God's grip on life, your face His lyre, Your eyes His stars—come, let our Venus lash Our bodies with the whips of Her desire. Your bed's the world, your body the world-ash, Adela! Shall I give the word to the man of the gondola?
A SONG OF SHIVA
Foul is the robber stronghold, filled with hate; Thief strangling thief, and mate at war with mate, Fronting wild raiders, all forlorn to Fate.
There is nor wealth nor happiness therein. Manhood is cowardice and virtue sin. Intolerable blackness hems it in.
Not hell's heart hath so noxious a shade; Yet harmless and unharmed, and undismayed, Pines in her prison an unsullied maid.
Penned by the master mage to his desire, She baffles his seductions and his ire, Praying God's all-annihilating fire.
The Lord of Host waxed wrathful at her wrong, He loosed the hound of heaven from its thong.
Violent and vivid smote the levin flash. Once the tower rocked and cracked beneath its lash, Caught inextinguishable fire; was ash.
But that same fire that quelled the robber strife, And struck each being out of lust and life, Left the mild maiden a rejoicing wife.
THE WELL
There is a well before the Great White Throne That is choked up with rubbish from the ages; Rubble and clay and sediment and stone, Delight of lizards and despair of sages.
Only the lightning from His hand that sits, And shall sit when the usurping tyrant falls, Can purge that wilderness of wills and wits, Let spring that fountain in eternal halls.
THE ALCHEMIST'S HYMN
Sulphur, Salt, and Mercury: Which is the master of the three?
Salt is the Lady of the Sea; Lord of Air is Mercury.
Now by God's grace here is salt Fixed beneath the violet vault.
Now by God's love purge it through With our right Hermetic dew.
Now by God wherein we trust Be our sophic salt combust.
Then at last the Eye shall see Three in One and One in Three.
Sulphur, Salt, and Mercury, Crowned by Heavenly Alchemy!
To the One who sent the Seven Glory in the Highest Heaven!
To the Seven who are the Ten Glory on the Earth, Amen!
CRUSADERS' CHRISTMAS
Noon slumbers softly in the palms; The desert breezes whisper psalms; And we who rest must rise and ride Beneath the banner cruciform That braves the Saracen, and storm This blessed Christmastide, For we are hardy, and worn with blows And battles, And languish for our mother snows.
What is the gladness of the well To us who pine for citadel, And joyous burg and Christian feast? But we are vowed to Christ to fight For God, our honour, and our right Against the recreant East. We have our ladies, you and I, My brothers! To keep our castles, and to sigh!
Oh! could some holy hermit give One short day's dalliance fugitive! Speed hither through the enchanted air Our ladies, for our faith's reward! Would it not sharpen every sword And perfume every prayer? Love sharp as holly and pure as snow, And kisses Beneath the moon for mistletoe!
TWO SONGS OF THE CRUSADERS
I. Wine
Heigho! Heigho! the Crescent and Cross! If the one is a bargain, the other's a loss. Who would be found On the ground Of Mahound A recreant knight, and a renegade boaster? Better we each Leave our bones here to bleach And be saved, than go burn with the Paynim imposter! For the infidel swine Lack our spirit divine; Their crazy old prophet prohibits them wine! Drink every knight! God and my right! We'll drive the black dogs to their kennels to-night!
II. Woman
What is the worth Of a hound or a hawk? A monkey for mirth! A parrot for talk! Rosamond's skin Is whiter than milk, Seductive as sin And softer than silk Would I were back From crusade for an hour My limbs lying slack In Rosamond's bower!
THE NYMPH OF THE WELL
In the well Where I dwell, It is cool, it is dusk; But the truth Of my youth Is a palace of musk. Truth come bubbling to my brim; Light and night are one to Him.
In the dark You may mark The slow ooze of my springs. But you know Not the glow Where the soul of me sings. Truth comes bubbling to my brim; Life and death are one to Him.
There is cold In the old Grey room of my caves; There is heat In the beat Of my passionate waves. Truth comes bubbling to my brim; Love and hate are one to Him.
THE SARACEN GIRL'S SONG
As the flower waits for rain As the lover waits for the moon, We wait, we wait, an hungry pain, For tidings from the battle plain— If those we love are hurt or slain, Or if the Lord hath smitten again The legions of the Cross, and hewn A path of blood where glory flares. The sabre strikes, the trumpet blares, The warhorse neighs,—Oh let us see The Crescent borne to victory.
THE GHOST
The ghost is chilly in his shroud:— Laugh aloud! Laugh aloud! His bones are rattling in the wind; His teeth are chattering with the cold; For he is dead, and out of mind, And oh! so cold!
He walks and walks and wraps his shroud (Laugh aloud! Laugh aloud!) Around his bones. He shivers and glares, For hell is in his heart stone-cold— What is the use of spells and prayers To one so cold?
The dogs howl when they scent his shroud. Laugh aloud! Laugh aloud! The village lads and lasses feel A breath of bitter wind and cold Blow from those bones of ice and steel So cold! So cold!
THE ROYAL LOVER
'Twas I that found the icicle on the lip of the crevasse: 'Twas I that found the gentian on the mountain pass: 'Twas I that found the fire to melt the maiden of the snow: 'Twas I that plucked the flower—and wear is, so! Nerissa drew the crystal spring from the music wells that slumbered; Nerissa drew my tears till the angels were outnumbered; And I with trapper's forest-lore, and fisher's craft and wiles, Hunted the shy bird of her soul, a secret spring of smiles.
The April dawn of love awoke Nerissa's snowy mountain; The sun of passion thawed at last the frozen fountain; And I, who shared a sterile throne, share now a blissful bower— Nerissa, oh Nerissa! God preserve this hour!
SPRING SONG
O who on the mountain Would tremble and shiver? The spray's on the fountain, The sun's on the river. The fields are ablush, And the valley's alight. Come, let us crush Out the wine of delight!
The thaw sends the torrent Its Bacchanal dance; The snows that the thaw rent Glitter and glance. The garden's a wonder Of colour impearled; The spring draws asunder Its woes from the world.
Come, O my maiden, Into the woods! The flowers dew-laden, Shake light from their hoods. Dance to the measure Of Bacchus and Pan Primæval, the pleasure Of maiden and man!
The North has a thousand beauties, and the South has only one. But we have borrowed a splinter from the spear of Captain sun. We have trees as green as their trees; We have apple-trees and pear-trees! We have girls as sweet as their girls; We have flaxen girls and fair girls— And chestnut girls and auburn girls— And darker girls with raven curls! We do not envy the monotony Of a nigger for love and a palm-tree for botany!
LAGER
A bumble-bee buzzed in my car: You cannot drink honey; drink beer! Now the wise men of earth Cannot measure the girth Of the brain of that brilliant bee! Bring a bock! bring a bock! Hang sherry and hock! Light Lager's the tipple for me!
HYMN OF THE FIORD-DWELLERS
All ye tottering crags that thrust Tortured foreheads from the dust, Palaces of fear wherein Lurk the sacraments of sin, Be abased before the nod Of our one Almighty God. Crag and pinnacle and spire Hear our hymn. Disrupt, dislimn, God is a consuming fire.
Dwellers of the darkness, flee! Leave the night to grace and gree! Whether sleep dissolves the soul Or vigil gains the godly goal, Be the Lord a puissant aid To his children undismayed! Craig and pinnacle, etc.
TWO SOLDIERS' SONGS
I
There's nothing like beer One's courage to cheer, A soldier is certain to tell you; And the militant one With his sword and his gun Is always a jolly good fellow!
II
Give rum to the sailor! It's always a failure; He tosses about on the breast of the ocean. He is clumsy and stout, And a booby, a lout, For his life is a perpet—a perpetual motion! [Chorus: three last lines of each verse.
The Temperance crank Gets his booze from the tank, A liquor less fit for a man than a frog. His mind is a fog, And he lives in a bog— You may bet you can always find him in the bog! [Chorus.
But the soldier's a chap That can laugh at mishap; He finds room in Dame Fortune's and Marian's lap. And why, do you think? It's a question of drink. He knows what is good when his stomach might sink! [Chorus.
Now this is the reason His foe he can freeze on, And defend his good monarch from malice or treason. His heart's full of cheer And his belly of beer, And he never—he never runs off to the rear!
Chorus
It may sound very queer, But the truth is quite clear. He never—He never runs off to the rear.
THE SACRED MOUND
"Goats of mine, give ear, give ear! Shun this mound for food or frolic! Heaven is open; gods are near To my musings melancholic. Spring upon the earth begets Daffodils and violets.
"Here it was maybe that Zeus With his favourite took his pleasure; Here maybe the Satyrs use With the nymph's to tread a measure. Let no wanton foot distress This encircled loveliness! Oh, some destined nymph may deign Through the lilies to come gliding, Snatch from earth the choral swain, Hold him in her breast in hiding! See they stir. It is the wind: Of my case they have no mind."
. . . . .
"Mist, is this the fairy veil Of the bright one that's for me? Too phantastic, false and frail, See, it melts to vanity!"
. . . . .
"Is it earth herself that breathes In the bosom of the flowers? Is it the fatal fire that seethes From the heart of hateful powers?"
D. T.
Atheism is a chasm. Pantheism, an orgasm. Theism, enthusiasm. Polytheism, a plasm. Monotheism, a spasm. He who thinks it is so—has 'em.
AT SOUSSE
Olive and cactus and palm And the far sea's Libyan calm, And the night over all: the twitch Of an Arab's hand—is a niche Not made for a saint? On my hips I twist to his sullen lips, Like a trodden snake. Does it reel, The slow inscrutable wheel Of the sky? One violence Ends the dream of defence. . . .
AVANT-APRÈS
(Etude de feminité)
Au Kirchenwald Bernois la lune entrevoyait Le corps étroit d'Aida, ennervé, frémissant: Mon corps le tenait coi, rude comme un géant Foudroyé. Les sapins, soldats, nous ombrageaient Sa bouche de Pharaon, son profil de Niké, son âme de Vénus, me trahissent au Néant, Le mot de toute femme est toujours un Jamais.
Ses yeux me brûlent. Comme un poison, son haleine M'envahit. Fou, j'étouffe. Le spasme de haine Me prend: le mâle fulgurant flaire la mort, La femme, l'assassin! Cauchemar, disparais! Il faut agir. (O grace, Cupidon!) Après, Le mot de toute femme est toujours en Encor.
RHEIMS
Hearest thou earth? The constellated stone, The lace that Virgin Christendom once wove That she might shew more worthy of God's love, The stalagmites in Heaven's cave that shone:— Hearest thou Earth? Thy lordliest shrine is gone.
Quake Earth, and groan. Babe history here was nursed; The destined brows of many a paladin Bore crown and chrism hence; freedom within This shadow first struck root, and flourished first. Now comes one hour of Heaven and Earth accurst
When madness got, and horror bare, a thing Twisted and writhen by the very stamp Of Nature, marking him, to rave and ramp, The Scourge of Satan, bat on bloody wing, Hell's bastard portent, the Accursèd King!
Him the arch-agony of baffled lust, Him the baulked pride of madmen, him the hate Of Earth for she could bear his dragon weight, Drew from his cavern, every breath a thrust, Fiend-flames that scarred God's universe to dust:—
Him engines out of hell announce; precede His coming demons; all about him gyre Murders, rapes, robberies, treacheries; foul fire His altar-flame, red ruin all his creed:— Priest of Apollyon, to the master-deed!
The howitzers that could not break the line Of men shall shriek against the storied stone; The shells, that could not batter hearts, atone By meaner murder-dastard, the design Of him that boasts his dynasty divine!
Him let God smite, man's sword strike sudden through Coil on foul coil, the scaly throat of him Pierced by the steel that martyrs forge in dim Smithies of death, and murdered babes bedew To temper it with tears Earth never knew!
Here by the ruin where such oaths were sworn As were the spine of Europe, let us stand, Rear to insulted Heaven a sworded hand Bloody with righteous vengeance, swear to adorn Rheims with an equal fane to front the morn.
THE SEVENFOLD SACRAMENT
"A Little moony night and silence" Blake
In eddies of obsidian At my feet the river ran Between me and the poppy-prankt Isle, with tangled roots embanked, Where seven sister poplars stood Like the seven Spirits of God.
Soft as silence in mine ear, The drone and rustle of the weir Told in bass the treble tale Of the embowered nightingale. Higher, on the patient river, Velvet lights without a quiver Echoed through their hushèd rimes The garden's glow beneath the limes. Then the sombre village, crowned By the castellated ground Where, in cerements of sable, One square tower and one great gable Stood, the melancholy wraith Of a false and fallen faith. Over all, supine, enthralling, The young moon, her faint edge falling To the dead verge of her setting, Saintly swam, her silver fretting All the leaves with light. Afar Toward the Zenith stood a star, As of all worthiness and fitness The luminous eternal witness.
So silent was the night, that I Stirred the grasses reverently And hid myself. The garden's glow Darkened, and all the gold below Went out, and left the gold above To its sacrament of love, Save where to sentinel my station, Gold lilies bowed in adoration.
Had I not feared to move, I might Have hid my shame from such a night! Man is not worthy to intrude His soullessness on solitude; Yet God hath made it to befriend Pilgrims, that His peace may pend, A dove upon the dire and dark Waters that assail the ark, And lure their less love to His own. Life is a song, a speech, a groan, As may be; none of these have part In the silence of His heart.
. . . . . .
Lapsed in that unweanèd air, I awaited, unaware, What might fall. The silence wrapped Veil on veil about me, trapped By the siren Night, whose words Were the river and the birds. So close it swaddled me, and bound My being to the pure profound Of its own stealthy intimacy, Had Artemis come panting by, Silver-shod with bow and quiver Hunting along the reedy river, And called me to the chase, I should Have neither heard nor understood. Or had Zeus his dangerous daughter, Aphrodite, from the water Risen all shining, her soft arms Open, all her spells and charms Melted to one lure divine Of her red mouth pressed to mine, I had neither heard nor seen Nor felt the Idalian. Between My soul and all it knowledge of The universe of light and love, Thought, being, nature, time and space, The Mother's heart, the Father's face, All that was agony or bliss, Stretched an infinite abyss. All that behind me! but my soul, With no star left to point the pole, Witless and banned of grace or goal, Beggared of all its wealth, bereft Of all its images, unweft Its magic web, its tools all broken, Its Name forgot, its Word unspoken, Widowed of its undying Lord, Its bowl of silver broke, its cord Of gold unloosed, its shining ladders Thrown down, its ears more deaf than adders, Its window blind, its music stopped, From its place in Heaven dropped, From its starry throne was hurled Beyond the pillars of the world— Borne from the byss of light To the Dark Night!
. . . . . .
The moon had sunk behind the tower When, for a moment, by the power Of nature, as even the eagle's eye Turns wearied from the sun, did I Fall from the conning-crag, that springs Above the Universe of Things, Into the dark impertinence Of the mirrored lies of sense. Yet, when I sought the stars to espy And ree the runes of destiny, Mine eyes their wonted office failed, So diligently God had veiled Me from myself! I could not hear The drone and rustle of the weir. No help in that world or in this! I was alone in the abyss.
. . . . . .
No Whence! no Whither! and no Why! Not even Who evokes reply. No vision and no voice repay My will to watch, my will to pray. Vain is the consecrated vesture; Vain the high and holy gesture; Vain the proven and perfect spell Enchanting heaven, enchaining hell. Unyoked the horses from the car Wherein I waged celestial war: Mine Angle sheathes again his sword At the Interdiction of the Lord. Even hell is shut, lest spite and strife Should show my soul a way to life.
Hope dies; faith flickers and is gone. Love weeps, then turns its soul to stone. All nearest, highest, holiest things Drop off; the soul must lose her wings, And, crippled, find, with no one clue The infinite maze to travel through, The goal unguessed, the path untrod, And stand unhelmed, unarmed, unshod, Naked before the Unknown God. Oh! stertorous, oh! strangling strife That cleaves to love, that clings to life!
The Will is broken, falls afar Extinct as an accursèd star. The Self, one moment held behind, Whirls like a dead leaf in the wind Down the Abyss. The soul is drawn To that Dark Night that is the dawn Through halls of patience, palaces Of ever deeper silences, Æons and æons and æons Of lampless empyrèans Darker and deeper and holier, caves Of night unstirred by wind, great graves Of all that is or could ever be In Time or Eternity.
Drawn, drawn, inevitably spanned, Tirelessly drawn by some strange hand, Drawn inward in some sense unkenned Beyond all to an appointed end, No end foreseen or hoped, draw still Beyond word or will Into Itself, drawn subtly, deep Through the dreamless deaths whose shadow is sleep, Draw, as dawn shows, to the inmost divine, To the temple, the nave, the choir, the shrine, To the altar where in the holy cup The wine of its blood may be offered up.
Nor is it given to any son of man To hymn that Sacrament, the One in Seven, Where God and priest and worshipper, Deacon, asperger, thurifer, chorister, Are one as they were one ere time began, Are one on earth as they are one in heaven; Where the soul is given a new name, Confirming with an oath the same, And with celestial wine and bread Is most delicately fed, Yet suffereth in itself the curse Of the infinite universe, Having made its own confession Of the mystery of transgression; Where it is wedded solemnly With the ring of space and eternity, And where the oil, the Holiest Breath, With Its first whisper dedicateth its new life to a further death.
. . . . . .
I was cold as earth: the night Had given way. One star hung bright Over the church, now grey; I rose up to greet the ray That thrilled through elm and chestnut, lit The grass, made diamonds of it, And bade the weir's long smile of spray Leap with laughter for the day. The birds woke over all the weald The sullen peasants slouched afield; The lilies swayed before the breeze That murmured matins in the trees; The trout leapt in the shingly shallows Soared skyward the great sun, that hallows. The pagan shrines of labour and light As the moon consecrates the night. Labour is corn and love is wine, And both are blessèd in the shrine; Nor is he for priest designed Who partakes only in one kind. Thus musing joyous, twice across Under the weir I swam, to toss The spray back; then the meadows claim The foot's fleet ecstasy aflame. And having uttered my thanksgiving Thus for the sacrament of living, I lit my pipe, and made my way To break fast, and the labour of the day.
ON THE EDGE OF THE DESERT
You come between me and the night That was my queen till you arose; You come between me and the light; You come between me and the snows. The sun, the sands, the horizon: Since you are come, all these are gone.
Leave me some love of flower and tree, Some passion for the moon and stars, Some ache of spring, some sigh of sea, Some echo in love's ancient scars, To witness ere your reign began That among men I was a man.
No voice in life allures but yours; Nor sight nor sleep allays mine eyes; Night sways my dull distemperatures Till light renews my scale of sighs. Half a man's span I have lived. In sooth You have found the elixir that gives youth!
From the most austral East you drove On the most fortunate wind that blows, A galleon piled with treasure trove, The sun's gold, silver of the snows, All jewels, all virtue far above— O tall ship laden with true love!
You strode majestical and fierce, Armed, an avenging Amazon, A warrior maiden mad to pierce With unfleshed steel man's morion. You thrust the rapier of your art, Singing for rapture, through my heart.
I died: and you by death refreshed, Washed in my blood, gave up my soul To Love, who, seeing us enmeshed, Wept, and with one smile made us whole: Whence you have all life's gold for gain And I am grown a boy again.
I am a thousand worlds withdrawn From these lone leagues of sand and sun. I am with you in the windy dawn; I am with you when night's fingers run Over the desert, when the dunes Lift up their faces to the moon's.
I am blind to these: my life's one ache. My tongue is swollen; my lips are burnt; My body shivers for your sake, For this last lesson I have learnt (Laylah, my Night!) tragic and true: I never loved till I loved you.
For you have fixed the boyish dream, And saved the man from “love's a wraith.” Your love rekindled hope's blue gleam, And hope fulfilled requickened faith, And faith confirmed renewed the birth Of a new heaven and a new earth.
Mine is the only star that ever Left the lone Cross to blend its ray With my Lion's Heart in dear endeavour To knell the night and dim the day. Mine is the only maiden worth The wooing ever won on earth.
Laylah, my night! Enshadow me: Draw down mine eyelids; bid me sleep And dream of thee, and dream of thee, Or wake and weep, or wake and weep. I care not which, so thee I find (Present or absent) in my mind.
A PARAPHRASE OF THE HIEROGLYPHS UPON THE OBVERSE OF THE STÉLÉ OF REVEALING
Above, the gemmèd azure is The naked splendour of Nuit; She bends in ecstasy to kiss The secret ardors of Hadit. The winged globe, the starry blue Are mine, O Ankh-f-n-Khonsu.
I am the Lord of Thebes, and I The inspired forth-speaker of Mentu; For me unveils the veilèd sky, The self-slain Ankh-f-n-khonsu Whose words are truth. I invoke, I greet Thy presence, O Ra-hoor-khuit!
Unity uttermost showed! I adore the might of thy breath Supreme and terrible God Who makest the gods and death To tremble before thee: I, I adore thee!
Appear on the throne of Ra! Open the ways of the Khu! Lighten the ways of the Ka! The ways of the Khabs run through To stir still me or still me: Aum! Let it kill me!
The Light is mine; its rays consume Me: I have made a secret door Into the House of Ra and Tum, Of Khephra, and of Ahathoor. I am thy Theban, O Mentu, The prophet Ankh-f-n-Khonsu!
By Bes-na-Maut my breast I beat; By wise Ta-Nech I weave my spell. Show thy star-splendor, O Nuith! Bid me within thine House to dwell, O wingèd snake of light, Hadith! Abide with me, Ra-hoor-khuit!
A PARAPHRASE OF THE HIEROGLYPHS OF THE ELEVEN LINES UPON THE REVERSE OF THE STÉLÉ
Saith of Mentu the truth-telling brother Who was master of Thebes from his birth: O heart of me, heart of my mother! O heart which I had upon earth! Stand not thou up against me as a witness! Oppose me not, judge, in my quest! Accuse me not now of unfitness Before the Great God, the dread Lord of the West! For I fastened the one to the other With a spell for their mystical girth, The earth and the wonderful West, When I flourished, O earth, on thy breast!
The dead man Ankh-f-n-Khonsu Saith with his voice of truth and calm: O thou that hast a single arm! O thou that glitterest in the moon! I weave thee in the spinning charm; I lure thee with the billowy tune.
The dead man Ankh-f-n-Khonsu Hath parted from the darkling crowds, Hath joined the dwellers of the light, Opening Duant, the star-abodes, Their keys receiving. The dead man Ankh-f-n-Khonsu Hath made his passage into night, His pleasure on the earth to do Among the living.
SIDERA VERTICE
Must every star that saves the night Gleam fearfully afar, Give no man love, but only light, Or cease to be a star?
Nay, there's no man since time began Through the ages until now, But won the goal of his set soul A star upon his brow.
Oh though no star serene as thou Shine in my night forlorn, Come, let me set thee on my brow, And make its darkness morn.
PRAYER AT SUNSET*
God, who hast sent me forth to be the priest Of Thine immortal fire, Grant me to light some one new torch at least Ere mine expire
Christ, who hast chosen me to bear the Cross, To pay the infinite price, Let save one soul from everlasting loss My sacrifice!
Spirit, who hast filled me with the sacred strife That brings the eternal peace, Let my breath quicken one dead soul to life Before it cease!
* This poem has been set to music by Mr. Steff Langston.
THE TENT
Only the stars endome the lonely camp, Only the desert leagues encompass it; Waterless wastes, a wilderness of wit, Embattled Cold, Imagination’s Cramp. Now were the Desolation fain to stamp The congealed Spirit of man into the pit, Save that, unquenchable because unlit, The Love of God burns steady, like a Lamp.
It burns! beyond the sands, beyond the stars. It burns! beyond the bands, beyond the bars. And so the Expanse of Mystery, veil by veil, Burns inward, plume on plume still folding over The dissolved heart of the amazèd lover— The angel wings upon the Holy Grail!
VILLON'S APOLOGY
(On reading Stevenson's Essay)
My duty is to God and man To do my work as best I can. I need, if that is to be done, Leisure and food and drink and fun. Why should I bow to scarecrow rule Of prig, professor, prude and fool? And who dare say I was a shirk? I did more perdurable work Than any other of my time: I limned my century in rime! Why should brute drudgery extort Respect that is denied to thought? Who knows what agony of toil Goes to make poets' cauldrons boil? Kindly permit me for the nonce The pride of having been a ponce! A trade that Stevenson, thinks I, Might have found difficult to ply. If I should make another Will, I'd leave him, in a codicil, What he most needs to make him stronger— An inch of nose, or something longer.
NEKAM, ADONAI!
The Preceptor's Address to his Templars
To Sir James Thomas Windram
Love, the saviour of the world Must be scourged with many rods, From its place in heaven hurled, Outcast before all the gods.
Love, that cleanses all, must be Washed in its own blood and tears, Heir of all eternity Made the martyr of the years.
Love, that fills the void with bliss, Staunches the eternal flood, Heals the hurt of the abyss, Blanches, beggared of its blood.
Love, that wears the laurel crown, Turns to gain the lees of loss, That from shame retrieves renown, Is the carrion of the cross.
Through the heart a dagger-thrust, On the mouth a traitor kiss, On the brows the brand of lust, In the eyes the blaze of bliss!
Life, the pimp of malice, drags Love with rape of fingers rude, Flings to dust-heap death the rags Of its bleeding maidenhood.
Therefore, we, the slaves of love, Stand with trembling lips and eyes; There is that shall reach above The soul’s sullied sanctuaries.
Blasphemy beneath our touch Turns to prayer’s most awed intent; The profaner’s vilest smutch Is our central sacrament.
Triumph, Templars, that are sworn To that vengeance sinister, Vigilant from murk to morn By our rifled sepulchre.
Death to superstition, swear! Death to tyranny, respond! By the martyred Master, dare Death, and what may lie beyond!
Heel on crucifix, deny! Mouth to dagger-blade, affirm! Point to throat, we stab the spy; Hand on knee, we crush the worm.
Every knight unbare the brand! Fling aloft the gonfalon! By the oath and ordeal, stand! By the bitter cup, set on!
Is Beauséant forward flung? Is Vexillum Belli set? Onward, Templars, old and young, In the name of Baphomet!
THE HAPPY MAN
I can't read and I can't write; I'm in bed all day, and drunk all night.
RENUNCIATION
Lent—and what shall I bar? What should a saint give up? Jam in a jasper jar Cake in a crystal cup, Soup in a sapphire spoon Beef in a beryl box, Millicent, Madge, the moon, Openwork silken socks, Chapbooks, Chippendale chairs, Alcohol, hope, hilarity, Crimes, chiropodists, cares, Contributions to charity:— I will live apart from my wife, And be on my best behaviour, Leading the simple life, All for the sake of the Saviour!
THE UNCONQUERABLE TSAR
Asia let loose her hoards against the West; Europe stood trembling at Time's judgment-bar. Her sole hope in the breadth of the bold beast Of Ivan the unconquerable Tsar.
Ivan gave battle; on the purpled plain Three days it swayed, rolling from scaur to scaur, Until an Afghan lance pierced eye and brain Of Ivan the unconquerable Tsar.
Fierce turbaned horsemen galloped over him, Brandishing battle-axe and scimitar; Elephants charging trampled trunk and limb Of Ivan the unconquerable Tsar.
Gaunt ghoulish hags gleaned on the battlefield, The sapphire-studded sash, the ruby star, The diamond-hilted sword, the golden shield, The golden-crested helmet of the Tsar.
The vultures from their stations in the sky, Invisible network of patrols flung far, Came slanting down the azure to pick dry The bones of the unconquerable Tsar.
Time in its turn has crumbled every bone, Moulding from things that were such things as are; Earth has rolled onward to oblivion Of Ivan the unconquerable Tsar.
There stands beyond Time's pulsing period That of which Being is but the avatar, And That knows nothing but Eternal God In Ivan the unconquerable Tsar
THE TYLER
Whenever I have spiritual thought, I interlard it with obscene allusion, So that chaste women of the baser sort May be confounded in complete confusion.
I garnish my Priapic epigrams With virgin garlands from an angel's brow, That honest men, though held in harlot hams, May reach a hand and pluck the Golden Bough.
These worthy hogs read me with frowning brows, But of their Guardian Angel gain a fresh hold: However eager, those unworthy sows Meet only with the Dweller of the Threshold.
FOEDUS CASTITATIS
To "Bimby" Haweis
Sybil Muggins [Sybil Meugens], with a moral knife, Cut the physical out of her life. An end to all the kissin's and huggin's And other amusements of Sybil Muggins!
Alas for the frailty of resolutions That disagree with our constitutions! It was only a week when a Camberwell chap Put the physical back with a snap.
(Moscow, August 1913).
Now that this moon of tribulation Is flung into the furnace of the sun, Witches, and wolves, and waters of stagnation Whose glamour hid the horizon Are gone.
Bring forth a maiden moon and slender, A palm-leaf, honey-pale, and faintlier fair Than aught imagination hath of tender To bathe the beryl breasts made bare Of air.
Bring forth a moon of myrrh and myrtle, A moon of slim delights more delicate Than when Persephone unbound her kirtle, Set small teeth in the pomegranate Of fate.
Bring forth a moon that as she waxes May bind fresh flowers upon my love and me, True talismans of Mithras and Abraxas, The Gnostic seal of mystery, The bee!
O let the crescent as it broadens Reflect a sphere whose spiral is unspun, The master with his mute and mighty wardens— God unbegotten three in one, The Sun.
Lord of the lightnings, now deliver These lovers from the cruel crocodile That lurks in the reeds beside the rivers For who would swim, to Hathor's isle, His Nile.
O moon, babe moon, methinks I see thee A scimitar of gold across the green, Paler than death, rose clouds that wreathe thee Bring blushes for thy bridal screen Their queen.
Rose clouds of love this mouth enfold us, Their emerald girdle cloven by my sword! Bright moon, babe moon, thine eyes of love behold us, My lady fair, and fervent in accord Her lord.
O with what spilth of wanton kisses Shall August waste the husbandry of June! Now we shall wander in the green abysses Of love, and teach thee thine own tune, Babe moon!
IN THE ORCHARD
To Lieut-Colonel Gormley
"Come, Priapus, stark and stern, Hear and hail as stout a suit. Thine the orchard; in my turn Let me feed upon the fruit!
"Velvet peach and silky pear, Ruddy apple, munch I must. Crude or mellow, let me share In the luxury of lust!"
Gnarlèd lips of goatish god Curl into a lewd leer; Nature knows the gnostic nod, And the answer "Persevere!"
A MOSCOW NIGHT'S ENTERTAINMENT
Right, the river stone-embanked; Left, the garden flower-prankt. Front, the crennellated wall Of the Kremlin over all. Marble, mightily foursquare, The Palace of the Tsar stands there. On its flank a wilderness Of domes ecstatically express The fixed and soaring faith that burns These frigid parallels, and turns Hearts to a tumultuous hell, Wherein a thousand devils dwell.
From the trees there undulate, Like a wehrwolf and his mate, Two, that kissed—and never heard The hushed footsteps of a third. Ere I saw it, all was done. The two were murdered, and the one, Wiping his knife, stole slyly forth From the menace of men's wrath. Sudden, down the river, rose The moon, an orange disk. The snows Glowed, with their holy heraldries To match the blood beneath the trees.
EUGENICS
I'm the ponce of a punk, With syphilis rotten. My parents were drunk When I was begotten. From him I have gout; From her I have phthisis: From both, never doubt, The gamut of vices. I was born in a slum; I was bred in a brothel; For milk I had rum; For meat I had offal.
The pious, the wise, That are living in clover, Show the whites of their eyes. They expect to discover (Accounting the taint Of my being as zero) The soul of a saint In the frame of a hero.
DOLOROSA
Love, through the dolorous way, Astride of the night, I am come like the moon, I will bear thee away To the dome of delight.
Love, I am winged, I am shod With the plumes of the passionate God! Like a hawk and a snake and a dove I have swooped, I have struck; I am love, I am joy, I am light, I am youth, I am goodness and beauty and truth! Now let me bear Thee aloft in the air Through the silence seraphic and sunny To the gardens of gold, That Iacchus of old Made glad for our æon of honey!
Through the Pass Peradventure I came With my eyes a celestial flame. I spied thee afar From my separate star, And I rose from my throne of jasper, Of jasper and jade, Immortal, a maid Disdaining the Gods that would grasp her. I darted, I glided— The moonbeams divided To let love's queen fly faster; I fixed my soul On the prey, on the goal, And I found thee, O my master.
Nemorosa! Tenebrosa! These are mine eyes and mine hair, This clouds thee over; Those discover, My lord and my lover, The eyes that find me fair. Dolorosa Call me no more! I am caught in the snare Of souls. I am one With the moon and the sun. I am earth, I am sky, I am thou, thou art I!
Be at peace all ye Sweet birds that be! Be all your voices idle Till the hour of Fate When we celebrate The beauty of the bridal! Then be your song So sweet and strong That all the stars go dancing. Nor let it die While love and I Find still our lord entrancing! While the worlds subsist My love be kissed! While the Gods endure, Still puissant pure Embraces and kisses That melt in abysses Beyond he thought Of the mind God wrought To think in stark infinities; Rhythmic, unrolling, Enchanting, extolling Their essence in silken trinities!
Oh, but my love, thou art too dear For all these words to tough thee near: They are but incense-smoke that curls About the altar. Through them whirls Such fiery benediction, shine Such glories from the solar shrine That, ere the veil be all withdrawn, Must be such hush of dawn As the soul knows when it surprises The God amid his sacrifices.
I Dolorosa smiled Seeing I had borne a child, Love's self—and on his brow The token he was thou. For thou art Love, and thou hast made Me Love, when thou didst make me thine Under the night, with nothing said. But sudden yet eternal trust Builded our heaven from dust So perfectly that neither life nor death May beat against it with their ominous breath. Instant, full-fledged, the dove descends, And all the temporal ends, Swifter than lightning, strikes the snake; Imminent love's awake, And Dolorosa's name Burns up in final flame, Leaving but flame, a new star-host high whirled Into the fastness of the night hot-hurled To lamp the abyss With light of one eternal kiss!
Ah love, ah Dolorosa, all this time I am but a mime, Seeking in rime To read thy thought, or else a wizard, working Spells, in his house of magic lurking, Spells to inform thy dream, that when the light Touches thine eyelids, thou mayst carry a hand To thy pure heart, and gasping for delight, Quicken, and understand: And, acquiescent, greet Me with such sweet Words, when we meet.
IRIS
No heavenly rainbow blazed on blue, But, spanned the infernal bowl, Hell fire glowed, glowered and gloated through The sweat of my damned soul. Blasting my sight, a purple pang Took demon-shape and soared and sang:
I am Iris the dancer, Iris the devil, Iris entrancer In riot and revel. Look in mine eyes! I clutch the celestial In lecherous thighs Burning and bestial.
I am gross, I am squat, I am red, I am Woman. With my kisses I blot Every hint of the human. I have eyes like a snake; I have arms like an ape; I hunger, I ache: Greedy, agape, The flat mouth, apace With its flaming curves, The square carved face, The fantastic nerves, The stallion desire That no Buddha could bridle, The dull flushed fire Of a Maori idol:
Poet and saint In my bosom grow faint My lust—oh the taint Of my lust! is a cancer. In me all their fire is; To me their desire is, To me—I am Iris, Iris the dancer!
VIOLET
Virginal Violet sleeping and enchanted, Am I the prince? I hardly see thee yet, Half-glimpsed in eye-flush over shoulder slanted Once in the moonlight, virgin Violet! Beauty is always sleeping and enchanted.
The blood-red roses on the sunset-river Bitterly bleeding echo me, not thee. It is my breast through which thine arrows quiver; Thou art but Dian, blushing not to see The blood-red roses on the sunset river.
Down yonder by the golden city lingers Love, taking idly man and maid for mimes, Twisting their secrets in his wanton fingers, Bidding them dance to his disdainful rimes, While on the golden city the light lingers.
Virginal Violet, your throat throbs, thrilling The dream with destiny—or else, coquette, You play with—one who maybe is not willing To find and lose a virgin Violet. Shall it be waking, Violet, or killing?
TWO BIRTHDAYS
Now you are eight-and-twenty, And I am thirty-seven, Our joys are fierce and fairy; I sing like a canary. Earth gives us of her plenty; We ask no other heaven, Now you are eight-and-twenty, And I am thirty-seven.
When you are two-and-eighty, And I am ninety-one, —If life so far extended— My music will be ended. Our sorrows will be weighty, And finished all the fun, When you are two-and-eighty, And I am ninety-one.
When centuries are over, And earth is just as young, Some speculative scholar May thus assuage his choler: "These lovers lived in clover: Their harps may be restrung When centuries are over And Earth is just as young!
"Their eyes may be rekindled; Their lips may bloom again, Not lost is Encke's comet! Toward the sun, and from it! The moon that daily dwindled Now silvers all the plain; Their eyes may be rekindled, Their lips may bloom again."
ULTRA VIRES
There was a man In Ispahan Who was not venomous or vicious; His only fault, If so you call't, Was to be something too ambitious.
Extremely skilled Was he to build A palace for the Shah his master. He planned its girth To match the earth, And consequently met disaster.
In love with life He took a wife— A pearl, with toe-nails pink with henna! He rushed on Fate And added eight, Turning his harem to Gehenna.
A mass of nerves The doctor serves Strychnine, with aconite and ginger. As you suppose, A triple dose Is somewhat liable to injure.
Unyielding still That tempered will! Still strong in death the ruling passion! Writhing, he plots More complex knots Than the accepted cobra-fashion.
Now, is it wise To recognize One's limits, just save soul from drowning? Or should one clutch he bit too much Like the grammarian of Browning?
MARIE
I found a woman worthy of My life, my everlasting love. I won her in an afternoon: 'Twas all too sweet, and all too soon
I went away. I never heard In all my weariness one word. She left me sad and sinister, My heart one wound, one ache for her.
Oh, when I find her once again, How shall I venge me for the pain? What torture or what death can pay Her cruelty? Love dare not say.
Is there no art in heaven or hell To square the count? I know full well How wise she is—how wise she is To mend the matter with one kiss!
THE FUN OF THE FAIR
The Moscow Jeremiahs cry Ichabod Over the Fair at Nijni Novgorod. Railways, they say, its glories have diminished; The merchants murmur, and the fun is finished. But, as experience teaches, those who hoard Their Schopenhauers are often just the bored, And as I need no pepper-pot to spice The simple soups of virtue and of vice, Trusting the Cook of Life to season well His masterpieces to my taste and smell, I put my hope and confidence in God, And booked my seat for Nijni Novgorod.
2 Nothing so desolates the heart and brain As travel by the swiftest Russian train: One might think coaching days were come again. Stay! all philosophers pick purple plums From every pudding that attracts their thumbs; The train epitomizes life itself. It is made tolerable by an elf Who, though responsible for some disasters, The best of servants and the worst of masters, Is one who (awkward both to catch and cast off) We shall be sorry when we see the last of. Consider not thy place-card as a chain, But seek thy “fortune” swiftly in the train. First, see how primitive one’s pleasure is, Recalling, commenting on, Genesis. Here is a problem for a Darwin’s grapple: The Elohist says Eve purloined an apple; How comes it then that evolution’s cares In these six Chiliads produce only pairs? Conjecture, probe no more the mystery! It matters nothing, least of all to thee. Rather lament that, though thy limbs be supple, Alone thou canst make only half a couple. Lament no longer; when Dame Nature errs, It is our duty to stop gaps in hers. And here she speaks with no uncertain voice; You pay no money, yet you take your choice. Then your own efforts, and, before you tire Of all thanksgiving, the exciting cause— The vastness of the steppes and the slow pause (To call it “motion” were to take in vain That worthy concept) of the Russian train That seems a tortoise indolent as weighty Matched with the bicycles of 1880. Four hundred versts—no more—from Moscow city To take ten hours seems certainly a pity. Still, woman, with some aid from wine and song, Makes long a little, and a little long. Who knows the ins-and-outs of travelling, In spite of ups-and-downs, may feel a king.
3 Having thus fattened and bedecked the victim, It is high time that my stiletto pricked him. No theme Byronic my pure pen engages; No new Tom Jones pollutes my pious pages; At this stage of the journey my scenario Borrows no lewdness from a loose Lothario, Confessing, with the frankness of a Fosco, I stirred no eyelid all the way from Moscow.
4 Behold the poet then, from drosky stepped With the nonchalance of the born adept, Enter the train, unfolding overcoat To pose as pillow, titillating throat With vodka, from wide nostrils spouting jet Of smoke from all-too-Russian cigarette, Beguiling Time, that double-witted foe Who always moves too fast or else too slow, With reading the advertisements and guides To conduct which the Company provides. (The Russian shows in carriage and in station A pretty talent of alliteration: “The grave gapes grim beyond window’s gloomy gate” “Woe worth the wight who waters when we wait!”) Now to my carriage come the destined three: One, beaming vodka, from the Caspian Sea; Two, with him like a snail he brought his bedding, The sort of German one spends life in dreading; Three, horribly obese, a Polish Jew, As Coleridge says, we were a ghastly crew.
5 As I was snoring, and the night pitch dark The journey offers little to remark. Even in the morning, at Gorokovetz, Where the pale tea one’s gummy throttle wets, Nothing diversifies the train’s slow lurches But endless rows of pines and silver birches. I prefer deserts to such petty greenery. To cut the matter short, there is no scenery. Baedeker, archetypal optimist, Cooes “villages”, purrs “churches”! I insist I saw few villages and fewer churches. What I did see, I’ve told you; pines and birches. Nor, too, do men who call their souls their own Support that soul on villages alone; Not even churches noble or grotesque Suffice my hunger for the picturesque And if they did, I pledge my everlasting Welfare that I should, this time, have gone fasting.
6 (However, if a bivouac at leisure Of fifty soldiers would afford you pleasure, I will admit I saw one, smart, not fallen off, A verst or two before we came to Zholnoff.)
7 Also some piles of wood, some heaps of stones, The sinews of the railway and its bones, Fields full of brushwood, uninviting scrub, Flowers that would look much better in a tub, But nothing else—or may I be accurst!— Tried to distinguish verst from dreary verst.
8 (Though I say verst offhandedly, suppose I know what every Russ surveyor knows: A verst is worth five times five score sagene, Each with its three archine, and these again Made of sixteen verchok—verchoks, by Peter, Stretch Point O Four Four Four Five of a metre. Not ignorance makes simple my narration, But kindly forethought and consideration. The Russian names, Lord knows, are hard enough Without such technical and turgid stuff!)
9 Hail, Rastyapinko! (What am I to say Of Rastyapinko? Gloomy verse or gay? My Muse says this—and then her wells run dry; “We stopped a minute there—and God knows why!”)
10 Now, neighbours, Nijni Novgorod is nigh. The Jew is dropping medicine in his eye; The sad Caucasian despairing droops; The German wakes to what he dreamt of—soups. Here’s quite a town, with huts and spires and horses! Here’s ducks and goats, and hills and watercourses; All heart could wish, the journey’s period. Yet, this is surely Nijni Novgorod.
11 The railway-station offers nothing new; The usual buffet, and a shrine or two.
12 The droskys[1] here being happily designed To throw one out both sides and eke behind, I took a porter. Here I gravely erred, Having of Russian scarce a single word, And he no knowledge—not a glimmer, he!— Of where my Yermoleff Hotel might be. We wandered many a verst of mild inquiry, Through streets, some cobbled, but the most part miry: When sudden in the vista came a dip, And he forsooth decided to take ship.
13 The Volga has its spell to lure and bind; Strange craft, rafts, barges, bridges ill-designed, Piles on pontoons, on sandbanks planed across. [Here is truth’s gain once more my poem’s loss. This was no Volga of my boyhood’s dream, But Oka’s base and tributary stream!] However, here’s the quay, and there’s the hill Crowned with its Kremlin,—but the thoughts that fill My mind are not of these. I am grown deaf To nature; I desire the Yermoleff.[2] Despair succeeds to doubt; with growing gall I had to take a drosky after all. We climbed a hill; we wandered up and down The blazing boulevards of this beastly town. At last I see the proud “Rossía” rise. Welcome! it echoes to the cloud-swept skies. I leap to earth; fate smiles its dreadful doom! In the Rossía they had got no room.
15 [sic] I left my bag, though, and set out on foot. An hour convinced me it was all no boot. Like Noah’s dove, without an olive, back I wandered, life still growing bleak and black. Vodka and sturgeon[3] pulling me together, And cheered by contemplating the fine weather, I made a further effort to explain That man, who only wakes to sleep again, Needs, as the fox his hole, the bird his nest, Some kind of bed—his object being rest. Thus far I made my point, and, lunch dispatched, I went forth hopefully once more, and scratched. First, I passed through the Kremlin: I confess That the interior did not impress; It was, like Quakers when they fall to sin, Far better outside than it is within. However, from the parapet one gains A sight of Volga and her mother plains. Both might go on for ever, it appears; And so they do, if all is true one hears.
16 I agitated weary legs and found, Where the Rodjestvenskaya goes to ground, A cupboard. This I gladly haste to hire, Though it is not a land of heart’s desire. For instance, bedclothes are not to be had. Towels and soap? The people think me mad. Things even more necessary to life than these Are not; the people smile and stand at ease. My plight would move a tyrant’s stony bowels. No soap?—I brought soap. I did not bring towels! Nor did I bring that useful—well, you know— That the Peruvian ties to saddle bow. However, men like I am don’t give up. I shaved and washed in some one’s coffee cup, Dried myself on pyjamas—kindly note I sleep—if sleep I can!—in overcoat. If sleep I can? In Russia one lies snug? So do the other tenants of the rug.
17 Having come thus far, by the grace of God, I go exploring Nijni Novgorod. My luck being what it is, the rain comes down Like haystacks, falling on the damned old town. Till now I trust I’ve kept my venom hidden. Thunderstorms, damn it! fairly put the lid on. ’Twas in the middle of the bridge it caught me. No roof to shield, no vodka to support me, Stoic, beneath the eavage of my hat, I walked and dripped, and wished I were a rat.
18 What was it made me brave the elements Thus boldly? What historical events Depended on me? Easy to explain: I wanted to find out about my train. Yes, friends, the more of Nijni Novgorod I see, The more I weep my ill-adviséd Odyssey! The gods that I have always praised before, saw Me wishing sometimes that I were in Warsaw! Those who know Warsaw will appreciate The quality of anguish desperate That went to make that wish. Well, on I went; Shop after shop displayed its soap, its scent, Its furs, its boxes, knives, dalmatics, figs, Cottons and silks, dogs, oranges, and wigs, And every other article of trade In every quality and every grade And every quantity at every price. The sellers (doubtless slaves to every vice), Tartars, Caucasians, Russians, Poles, and Finns, (So like each other they might all be twins, Said my tired eyes) of many a mingled race In life’s shop-window filling every case, Patriarch, matron, boy, man, mother, wench, All sorts: but not one sort that could speak French! As a French scholar was my sole desire, I mentally consigned them to hell-fire. Proof of the wisdom of creation’s plan That God damns not so readily as man; For these were possibly quite decent folk, Despite the filthy jargon that they spoke! This attitude of easy tolerance Springs from a very simple circumstance: This, that my long walk ended happily— The station buffet, and a glass of tea!
19 Although I very rarely go to church, God never wholly leaves me in the lurch. Russians insure their lives in railway trains, Though why the young should do so beats my brains. Still, I am glad; for the insurance girl, —In Nijni Novgorod the one pure pearl!— Speaks German. My retreat thus made secure, I tempted destiny, fell to the lure Of yet another drosky. Back or side It lacked; it asked an acrobat to ride! Save one small knob perhaps they put a ring to, Nothing to lean against, or catch and cling to! I clutched an obol, needing it for Styx. A crazy stallion and a boy of six, Racing for life across uneven cobbles, Would turn the thoughts of a V.C. to obols! However, death shot wide. He felt no shame at The miss—I was a nasty mark to aim at!
20 Now the reward of courage I might reap. The lust of food exceeding that of sleep If only for an hour, I took a table At the Apollo, and, thank God, was able To order, in an icy silver jar, What they call Ikra, and we caviar.[4] Vodka prepared its passage through the pharynx, And vodka oiled my late lamenting larynx. (I wish to say, before it takes effect, I cannot warn you what you may expect; But this I say, that when the word occurs, The action follows.) Oh, censorious sirs! If ever man deserved a dam long drink Of vodka, it is I, who did not shrink All day for your sakes sun and storm to dare, Parleying growls with many a Russian bear, And faithfully reporting what the fair Is like. Oh, where, in Satan’s name, oh where Is my sweet shashlik? (Note the strange but true Effect of vodka—four rimes now for two!) Where is my shashlik? “What’s a shashlik?” Slave Of prejudice and Brixton, to the grave From that fierce moment when some scissor-sword First snapt in twain thine umbilical cord, Travel, and taste of vodka! (You observe The effect of vodka on poetic nerve?) Hush! now the band starts; everybody tunes His instrument—oh joy beyond all Junes! Here’s the Caucasian, grey and silver; high Above his head four skewers scare the sky, And every skewer holds the toasted mutton, For which Heaven’s Son would give his yellow button, That is a shashlik! Oh, my waiter, pour The Riesling of Sebastopol! No more! No more the vodka! I’ve an intuition This drunk will come to exquisite fruition. The band is playing rag-time Wagner. Life Seems much more liveable. I have no wife, But here one’s wants are readily supplied. The band begins. The curtains now divide, And—no! again I disappoint you, miss! A Russian café-concert lacks the bliss Of novelty. One hears of naughty Flo The golden-haired, who changed so much, you know, And other rubbish of ten years ago. However, as I wish my poem read When Havelock Ellis and the rest are dead, I may observe that the girl just behind me Is evidently quite prepared to find me Prince Charming. (Damn! I hope you understand. I do this as a duty. Love is banned By every honest Briton. I alone Do love by stealth, and blush to find it known! Here’s truth and fiction curiously mingled. Mix them yourselves, and tell me if it tingled!) Now she is gone. It’s really rather funny— She is an “artist”—that costs too much money. Art for art’s sake—no! there my aphorism Is cut like the sun’s glory by a prism, For she comes back. Oh well! Expect a pause! When vodka takes the stage, the muse withdraws. I order coffee made in a machine: Why should it cost three roubles? I am mean, Maybe. Six shillings for a cup of coffee? If it were not for vodka, not for toffee! Well, if at birth God wrote upon my forehead That I was to be scalped, it may be horrid, But scalped I shall be. A prophetic gipsy Once augured that one night I should be tipsy. I mocked her scrutiny of the event— And now I know it was to-night she meant!
. . . . . . . . . . .
21 This café-concert fake, as I’m a sinner, Spoils love—what odds? But also it spoils dinner. The finely meditative frame of mind That a well-ordered dinner leaves behind Were marred by interruption from a sage; A fortiori, from a stupid Stage. Gaiety, when I am or am not drunk, Makes me too jealous of a Buddhist monk Who in three robes, once yellow, later puce, Sends noise to nowhere, women to the deuce, And by the contemplation of his nose Gets good digestion, and divine repose. How can I emulate that monk, I ask you, While squeals Mademoiselle Borucharskya? I wait (in hell) for Aishye-Rustzma, martyr, Because she’s billed as an “artistic Tartar.” Is Tartar the comparative of tart? If so, come Aphrodite! farewell Art!
. . . . . . . . . . .
22 This coffee has saved money in the long run. Near midnight, and it slackens not its strong run
. . . . . . . . . . .
23 This Tartar lady—vain were Cupid’s rumours! She’s like the rest exactly—but wears bloomers. I now sincerely wish I had confined My evening’s wooing to the girl behind.
. . . . . . . . . . .
24 My early training conquers, praise the Lord! With all this vice I am extremely bored. I shall arise, and gird myself, and pay My bill, and tip the man, and go away. Virtue has triumphed; it is not quite nice, This only happens when I’m bored by vice!
25 I walked across the bridge; I climbed afar By the funiculi funicular To where Vostotchny runs his lordly hall— Restaurant, concert, theatre, and ball. Careful of virtue, chary of expense, I passed it by, and footed gaily thence By darkling paths, suggested, it may be, By hope of finding Whistler’s Battersea. In fact, if a mere layman dare to say so, Nijni by night is like his Valparaiso. An active and malicious beggar found me. I had a sword-stick, else he might have downed me. As things fell out, not I but he inspires The Nijni Sherlocks to Cumaean fires. Down the hillside I wandered in the dark Across the bridge again, a fading spark Still hoping virtue—ever prone to fall— Might witness vice’s triumph after all.
26 In one thing Nijni Novgorod’s no joke. Upon that beastly bridge you may not smoke: And, as I crossed it fourteen times—about!— This fact completely spoilt my evening out. Especially since vice remained as coy As I have been, two decades, man and boy. Weary, I sought my bedstead, there to stretch Chaste limbs of an uncomfortable wretch. Not even a candle in the room whereby To catch these loose impressions as they fly! I took a chair, and the hall lamp; and now Sleep spreads his angel wings upon my brow. (Life has no more to offer to a king.) So ends an uneventful evening, Barring, of course—well, no more need be said To those familiar with the Russian bed.
27 The story of my getting up I curtail. I cleaned my shoes upon a piece of shirt-tail, Went to the coffee-cup and made my toilet, (There’s pathos—but another word would spoil it!) Sailed forth, resolved most potently to square Experience with the fulness of the fair. The day was fine, the hour was half past ten. I had of course refilled my fountain pen; But oh! the misery I might have spared Myself if I had properly prepared The victim for the ordeal by a glass Of tea. Oh well, no matter, let it pass!
28 Till One I wandered up and down the fair, And this is part of what I noticed there: Sausages, satchels, sables, samovars, Locks, studs, hats, flat-irons, rat-traps, motor-cars, Tea, stirrups, saws, straps, belts, coats, sandals, forks, Censers, rugs, ikons, beads, horns, carpets, corks, Handkerchiefs, banners, melons, bread, clocks, wheels, Fish, earrings, nuts, combs, onions, sharpening steels, Tomatoes, popguns, buttons, apples, screws, Books, rattles, pa-posh, safes, decoy-ducks, shoes, Cooking-pots, guns, galoshes, amber strings, Pearl, coral, balalaikas, carriage springs, Tin toys, accordeons, basins, gramophones, Powder flasks, typewriters, lamps, purses, bones. . . . And now, by Jesus Christ and Doctor Tanner, And all who have fasted in their well-known manner, I think I have earned food; and, as I eat it, I will look through the record and complete it By mention of each nation, gens, or clan, Kindred, tongue, people, race or tribe of man That ever scuttled ship or cut carotid, Whom with this eagle eye of mine I spotted, And in my note-book jotted them as potted. Russ, Finn, Lapp, Dane, Norwegian, Swiss, Greek, Pole, Turk, Persian, Spaniard, Portugee, Creole, Bulgar, Roumanian, Montenegrin, Serb, A cockney answering to the name of ‘Erb, Belgian, Basque, Dutchman, Ghoorka, Sikh, Pathan, Madrasi, Cingalee, Chinese, Afghan, Jap, Siamese, Shan, Chin, Malay, Burmese; Tibetan, Balti, Zulu, Javanese, Hottentot, Krooboy, Veddah, Bushman, Gippy, Kanaka, Scot, men from the Mississippi; Khun-khus, Dewan, Yank, Taggara, Panjabi, Men who claimed pedigree from Hammurabi, Austrian, Cossack, German, Tartar, Swede, Bengali, Cappadocian, Samoyede, Folk from Andorra, men of Monaco, Italian, Jew, Sicilian, Esquimaux, —Here’s where artistic feeling should have checked me. You’ll think I’m lying. Well, you can’t expect me To stick to truth all day and every day. Besides, I’ve tried it, and it doesn’t pay. Still, if I did exaggerate a bit, I’ll face the box and ‘kiss the book on it’ That I at least saw Russians. Ebb, thou tide Of incredulity, be off, subside, Skidoo, take hook, begone, scram, twenty-three! In future you may strictly credit me.
29 Besides the block of shops there is a square Containing the diversions of the fair. The usual thing—monkeys, two-headed brats, A lion-tamer, wrestlers, acrobats, Nothing of note; but here the sons and daughters Of misery had set up their headquarters. Beggars! the halt, the maimed, the blind, the lame, Every one different—and so strangely same! Here if in nothing else this most erratic Town is emphatically Asiatic. Beside the bridge were naked children bathing, When I perceived the prospect of a plaything In the slim person of a Tartar lass Of sixteen summers: so it came to pass I thus addressed her: “Maiden of Kashgar! Pearl of Herat! Bokhara’s brightest star! Dawn on the desert! Siren of the Snows! Soul of the steppes! Dusky lily-bloom that blows In what a wilderness! Ah, leave that hand In mine; Love’s office is to understand! Tulip of Tartary! New-born gazelle! Herald of heaven advancing into hell! “Wilt thou not come—wilt thou not fly with me?” The bird, the river call us to the sea. There go the ships! Oh let the Volga bear The enchanted whispers of our love’s own air By far Kazán where skulls adorn the plain, To sweet Samára with its golden grain, To gay Sarátoff with its gardened hills, To Astrakhán—oh! nature to it thrills, My love—your cheeks (through all their olive) glow! Your eyes are fixed in ecstasy! I know You love me—come! oh come, my love! what lack Hath heaven but kisses, strenuous and slack, Between your shoulders? Is not life a dream, Earth but a mote that revels in the stream Of sunlight? Why then, I am all on fire, I clench my fingers, and my lungs suspire Terrible sighs—and thou with tender eyes Welling with love, exchanging sighs for sighs From the young bosom’s blossom that expands Its joy beneath the sunlight of my hands That press it—ah, thine head falls back, the lips Curl back as all the world is in eclipse, And ask—what here they may not have. We move Lost in the dream—the dream of virgin love— And find ourselves—oh in what garden of spice? What palace of desire? What Paradise? Angels fling flowers for a bridal bed; Cherubs drop perfume on my lady’s head; The air awakes to singing seraphim; Archangels lead them to the song supreme That when God heard it, before Light was, curled His lips with passion to create the world— Where? Must I let the ancient secret out? The very room I have complained about! Then she: “Thou sun whose fiery beams enlarge My crescent! Tide that floats my gilded barge Out on the sea of rapture! Tower of strength That hast laid low my battlements at length! Bee that hast robbed the honey of my flower! Thief that hast had a lifetime in an hour! Thou stalwart that with sudden outrage and force Didst fling me across thy saddle, in thy course Spurning the stars with stallion hoofs! Thou god Of all my prayers, their perfect period! Tiger that leaping from thy lair hast torn My tender flesh! Insufferable thorn To pierce my rose! What clamour shall I make? Cry out on vengeance? Call on God to slake That thirst of blood? Murder me, yes or no, Monster and vampire—but I love thee so! Leave me no more! I give myself! I yield All the bright barley of my maiden field To brew thee wine! Intoxicating draught Of Love—no poison-potion Arab-quaffed So thrilled—my veins are raptured—blood and brain Dance as my tribe have never danced. Again! Again! Again! Thy kiss is molten fire Feeding delight, yet nourishing desire. Am I then lovely? All is thine! For thee I left the frozen fields of Tartary: For thee my mother travailed at my birth; For thee God sent me from the stars to earth! Take all thou canst—I give thee all I can! My monster-master! I have found my man!”
32 And I: “God do so unto me, and more If ever I forget thee to adore Strange goddesses. Then, once again, thy breast! Give me thy throat to drain its burning best! Thy finger-nails torment my shrieking spine! Now—once again, fair Tartar, thou art mine! Once, twice, and thrice—oh, but let death decide The battle, swallow in his trembling tide Victor and vanquished! Stern arbitrament Of war! Dread god of the divine event! There—ay, ‘twas there that Héré yielded up The wine that never flowed in Hebe’s cup: ’Twas there Antinous bid Adrian be: There Eli-gabel made the slave go free! Yea, what life gathers is but boyish bliss: Death’s rite be ours—the first was naught to this! Then—”
33 There was more, much more; let this suffice To hymn the triumph of virtue over vice!
34 I thought it right to enter in my log The details of this daring dialogue; And if the reader has been bored, advise Closing the book—I won’t apologize. Most probably, his intellect will ask How we were fitted for the testing task Of making these remarks—a Tartar wench Is not the sort of person to talk French! I have a shot left in my old portmanteau. Or, please suppose we spoke in Esperanto!
35 I climbed the hill again, to ponder thence The beauty of these rivers’ confluence. There lies the Volga, mighty bar and bond Of Russia; rich green flats reach out beyond So restful that the eye is hard to draw Back from their soft calm brilliance, till I saw Minute the churches, dotting it with white, And golden haycocks by the banks, alight With the sun’s tragedy. To left and right The hill winds, wooded, with its greener roofs Putting even Nature to severer proofs, And, red and green and gold, Byzantine revel Of churches where one might invoke the devil, So all-fantastic are their twisted spires And domes aglow with their own monstrous fires!
36 Below me lies the Oka, grey and gold, Asleep, its shipping mightier in mould Than once Leviathan. The busy bridge, Each mannikin minuter than a midge, Leads to the square grown misty, dense and dun, Beneath the blazing agony of the sun That dies above them. What with pears and port, A stiffish hill-climb and still stiffer sport, I gladly notice on my left the bar That men do call the Vostotchny Bazaar. I could have found a shorter name, I think; To me it simply stands for “food and drink”.
37 This food, this drink,—oh, lots of it!—are mine. From the great balcony I watch decline The sun, reluctant (I believe it true!) To set, in case his setting spoil my view! More golden and more green the domes and crosses Of great Saint—here the Muse again at loss is. This church was built since patient Baedeker Pencilled his volume, and I shall not stir To ask the waiter who the Saint is—dome And cross shine no less bright. A blue-grey gloam Subtly enfolds the steppes. Soft clouds lie grey About the north: earth’s noises die away: Heaven’s anthem wakes—’Tis but a hush increased! Great flights of birds come flickering from the east Like dead leaves down the wind; the Volga shines More silver-rose; still subtler grow the lines Of all the landscape; a vermilion haze Surrounds the sun, that still shoots out his rays Venomous, as a warrior in his death Spends utmost malice in the utmost breath. —And now all suddenly goes blue. The sky Flames into green and orange. Must thou die, Beloved? This is the extreme of fate The whole world goes incalculably slate. The wind comes chill; the sun is dead. Oh death, I feel the first faint fondling of thy breath Even now. Bring wine! Bring food! Bring anything! It matters nothing: man must meet his king.
38 Well, Volga still extends, a silver streak, And the full moon is not so far to seek. Before an hour’s gone she will countermand The sunset, make old Nijni fairy-land. In any case, I’m powerless in the matter; I’ll eat, and take my chance of getting fatter.
39 However, it grows cold, and I am fain To go and catch my Tartar girl again, And, with a little bit of luck, my train.
40 My song resumes its melancholy tune. I reached the station just two hours too soon, Or else an unknown period too late. (Russia is never truly up to date: Is there no statesman to resolve “I shall end her Fiasco of the antient Julian kalendar?”) In any case, I am indeed ill-fated; My German lady has evaporated.
41 However, I command a cup of tea, Resolved, with Asquith, I would wait and see. So here I am, a miserable being From too much waiting and too little seeing.
42 (I might describe the buffet; but, my aunt! You bet your bottom dollar that I shan’t. I split my light of genius in a prism; This ray’s called “conscientious journalism”; But—they admit it, even at Scotland Yard— The strongest conscience may be worked too hard.)
43 One who is universally admitted In these degenerate days the keenest-witted Mahatma going—I am proud to boast I was the pupil whom he loved the most— Once told me this important mystery Pertaining to the ninety-ninth degree: “Never do magick; you will surely rue it.” But what use is it, if you mustn’t do it?
44 Accordingly, I first approached the shrine, Making no reverence:[5] then these words were mine: “Sir, since the sottish vote of a majority Has drest you in a little brief authority, (Angels would weep, indeed, to see you sainted, If they but knew how badly you were painted!) I introduce myself.” (I did.) “I doubt If there is much we could agree about; But here’s a basis for our bargainings; You want wax candles, and I want three things. First, no more trouble over this damned ticket. (Safe journey? Well, I’ll trust you to play cricket.) Second, that no one steals my precious bag. Third, since the hours unconscionably lag, A lady’s conversation. For the first, A candle of five kopecks. Next and worst A candle of ten kopecks. For the girl, A candle of five kopecks.” Then I twirl Toes, and march off with a nonchalant nod. He put the situation before God
45 The booking-office opened with a rush. There, sweetly smiling, with a damask blush Mantling her cheeks, my German girl. Both hands Offered her service to my least commands; There were my tickets. Venerable and mild, A porter with the spirit of a child, The courage of a lion, the address Of Cinquevalli, grasped my bag. I bless My saint already—almost I begin— “Say, what an all-fired place to travel in!” Fell on my ears. I naturally turned, And quite admitted that the saint had earned His twenty kopecks. She who thus addressed me Was just the person who could interest me. These were her merits: youth, rank, elegance, Beauty (though nothing had been left to chance), Strong common-sense, unquestionable pluck, Bright ways, strong intellect. Yes, this was luck! The conversation sparkled—cunning elf! She made me tell her all about myself! So that an hour passed charmingly. The saint, Now positively smiling through his paint At the tall candle with the small gilt pattern —My sense of gratitude was never slattern— Blazing before him, to encourage trade Threw in a bonus—the best car that’s made! No Russian carriage with its worse than flea, Its cushions without elasticity, But the real thing—the hall-marked wagon-lit! Silver and velvet and mahogany! The bell that tinkles once, and in a trice Comes the Veuve Clicquot bucketed in ice!
46 Here the Muse flags. Would great Apollo dare To string the lyre to joys beyond compare As these? Apollo is a golden god: —After three days of Nijni Novgorod, To find a bed with pillows, and clean linen Whiter than winter’s self to stuff one’s skin in, Were more than mere Olympians can equal.
47 Needless to say, the story has no sequel. I rose to greet the sun, The train ran smooth, As if it had a woman’s heart to soothe, Through woods and gardens, dotted here and there With summer villas. Now, remote and rare, Is Moscow, all its myriad houses lying Still sleep-drenched in the shadow stupefying Of night, while all its thousand domes take fire Sparkling and glimmering toward day’s desire, Their thousand throats of bronze in chorus one To hail the resurrection of the sun.
1—I have risked all but my immortal soul Of yore in the Norwegian cariole; In Baltistan I trust I learned the knack Of braving Indus in the zany “zak”; In Mexico the Broncho’s back confessed My nerve—my skill’s not equal to my zest. Much mountaineering tends to make one staunch; I often ride upon an avalanche. But for the blasé, whom these things no longer Thrill, on the look-out now for something stronger— I shall be glad to call the man my friend, And I can confidently recommend That final test of the good help of God, A drosky-ride through Nijni Novgorod.
2—To calm the reader’s natural anxiety, I solve this little problem with propriety. No Yermoleff Hotel at all was here, Yermoleff merely brews the local beer! I must get even with the Moscow bloke Who thought I should appreciate his joke!
3—Horseradish sauce, with cucumber and cherries; Equal to anything you get at Verrey’s.
4—Note for the gourmet. If your lips grow scorny Over the Russian black-bread, yclept Chörny, You err. As nothing else its taste combines With caviar. And when you read these lines, Further observe that caviar best walks On stilts of finely chopped green onion stalks.
5—This strikes the saint at once; in his high station Of life he sleepily soaks adoration. A man’s approach gives him a nasty jar; He wonders who, by Vassily! you are. Familiar with the story of the past, His constant dread is an iconoclast. He feels relieved on hearing you mean trade; You get his whole attention and his aid. Afraid to haggle, glad to be well out of it, He gets you all you want; and more, no doubt of it.
MOSCOW, July 1913.
Day after day we crawled Beneath the leaden, flat Featureless heaven, across dull emerald Field after field, whereon no aureate Sunrise awakened earth’s Magnificat, Save at the marge where, rimmed with duller pines, Dun earth mixed with black heaven, there unsealed A red eye glowing through that furtive field, As if the bloodhound of Eternity Tracked the thief Time. Remorseless rain Beat down, pale piteous monotony, Upon the inexplorable plain. A gnome that staggers under the grim load Set on his back by God, Might pity our weak jolting as we moved Hopelessly, yet inevitably, on, Under who knows what senseless goad, Unlovable as unloved, Toward the evasive horizon That mocked us without laughter, wrapped In its own cynic sleep, Careless of the vitalities it trapped, Not sanguine from the blood it lapped, Not living from the life it sapped, But in eternal gloom, Its own soul’s tomb.
This was the sombre way we went— Not eloquent of death, since death is change, But of some tideless ocean sad and strange. Beneath a mute, immobile firmament, The sun himself struck silent at the nod Of some more awful God.
We were so far from the one city we sought That we had never hoped; and so despair Never built bastions against the thought That we might—in some ultimate—be there. Sunset and dawn were but the same red eye, The first behind us and the last before, Nor was the night more leaden than the day, Since—to see less no worse than to see more, Sight’s limit being that monotony Of grievous green and grey!
Wonder could no more touch the soul. The dawn Broke as it peers had broken when we found Ourselves in an enchanted ground Where all the plain was suddenly withdrawn, And we were in the midst of alien races And monstrous market places Where no man marked us. An armed man stood out From the bright-coloured rabble: he was black From head to foot, save for the peacock’s plumes That was his crest—then was this wonderland Storied Baghdad or silken Samarcand? Kashgar the envied? Yarkand the yak’s mart? Himis of holy men beyond utmost wrack Of Himalaya? Pride of Jhelum’s strand, Srinagar, happiest hope of every heart? Oh! but the warrior signed for us to loose Our shoes, for that the ground whereon we trod Was holy already from profaner use, Being the outskirts of the City of God.
II. Close-ranked, the legions of the spear-bright rain Roared as they charged; we came incontinent Within a space: a threshold of twin spires, Topaz and jade, confront the firmament, And ’twixt them nestled the babe fane, Domed with blue canopy, the golden fires Of stars about it; there we stayed and there Put up petitions well and thorough to fare, Whorls of faint smoke that soared in the thin air. Lo! suddenly we felt our feet unshod Bleed with the sharp bliss of the City of God.
III. Towered above the abyss, the red wall ran Mightily forth, its crenellated crest A square-toothed saw, God’s luminous azure Poured through each palpitant embrasure, Save where, crown over crown, fan over fan, Dome upon dome, cupola beyond cupola, Great gland, sun, moon, cross, crescent, breast And mightiest breast and gland and Vesica Heaving with natural and unnatural longing, Crowding, coalescing, thronging, Mixing their magic, clouding over all With pale, pure gold, the spring sun’s thrall Thrilling with ecstasy to burst the blue — Oh! all our hashish dreams came true When we beheld the jewel of the city, Its nine glands coloured like all manner of fruit And flowers with stripe and trellis, whorl and spire, Even like all manner of beast and bird that be, And every gland stood bare, disdaining pity, Each shaft a column of fire, And its vibration was a lyre, And the echo of it a lute, So that a mighty melody Shone out thereof, a maze of moon in the gloom All inexpressibly dowered with perfume. And this was molten, this was living stone, This was the very flesh and blood of God, Incarnate Christ, the Saviour, hailed alone Artifex, martyr, the reviving rod That on itself begat the one true vine And from its own breast drew the only wine. And all was rainbow and aurora blended In fluent colours interchanged and splendid Pure water whirled into pure fire and flecked With miracles of form, Wheels upon wheels expiring and erect, Colour and sound in storm, The heart of God within a frame of blue, Our hashish dream come true!
IV. And all this hung above a mighty river. Curve after curve, an amphisbaena, wound About the base of those pale precipices That cut the clouds, whose curtained eyelids quiver In their absorb’d gaze into that profound, The abyss of height confronting the abysses Of East and North.—Oh! but the fiery fan Of burning water that made molten love To the fiery face of the fair fane above, Whose pure and whose palingenetic plan Was older than all worlds, than that hot hour When Christ Ischyros capped the topmost tower About whose root the royal river ran.
V. Gold upon gold, dome above dome, faint arrow Kindling sharp crescent, as the sunrays swept; Save for one midnight moment when one narrow Fierce ray, exhaling from no eye that slept Of God, one God, the sun—Gold upon gold, Frond upon frond, fold upon fold Of walls like leaves and cupolas like flowers, And spires and domes that were as fabled fruit Of the low lands beyond the pillared seas O Hercules. Silver, sharp showers Swept on the city, and made mighty suit To the great god whose amorous hours Were housed in those eternities Within, where, by the frescoes and the gold, Musical, manifold, Carven like lace, by malachite And pophyry and chrysolite, Where in their copper-cold sarcophagi Hundreds of emperors lie, And in their reliquaries bediamonded Thousands of saints still watch their jewelled bones; And beneath canopies of precious stones Invoked archangels, each an armed host, Hold ready to defend with glaive and spear The frontiers of the city, and appear The emblazoned ensigns of the Holy Ghost That all invisible pervades the whole, Being its secret soul. There, in that sanctuary of silences, There is a Word, The Word that built the city, never heard By any of those archangel phalanxes, Unuttered even in the holy heart Of God, or breathed by its own lightning breath, Since from all being it stands ever apart, Its name being Life, and that name’s echo Death.
VI. Then when I was caught up into rapture—yea! From heaven to heaven was I swept away. And all that shadow city past, And I was in the City of God at last. This city was alive, athrob, astir, Shaped as the sacred, secret place of Her That hath no name on earth, whose whisper we Catch only in the silence of the sea. And through it poured a river of sunset blood, Pulsing its choral and colossal flood Throughout the city, and lifting it aloft, Too subtle-strenuous and too siren-soft, So that the very being of it did swim Into Herself, bliss to the buoyant brim, And rose and fell as only rise and fall The bosoms of those maids ecstatical Whom Gods caress with giant spasms— Red orgiastic dawns of the orgasms Wherein the soul, beneath its own feet trod, Spends itself in the sanctuary of God!
VII. And in that heart of hearts was no more I, No more the heart; but sobbing through the sky, Came trembling the more awful beat, the blast Of a million trumpets blazoning the past, Heralding the to-be, and on their wings Whirred incommunicable things. And in their wake, tremendous and austere, A form of fear, Awe in the shape of the Most Holy One, A globe, an eye, an hawk, a lion, a lord, A bowl of brilliance, a winged globe, a sword— All these in one, and one beyond all these, Mute, ithyphallic, caryatides Like gods about his car, came crested on The one true God, the Sun!
Instant, the city, swirling to its brim With Life unthinkable, dissolved in Him. Instant, explosion shook the bounding night, Smote it but once, and left but one thing, Light.
Oh, but the scarlet swallows up the blue— Our hashish dreams come true!
MORPHIA
Thirst! Not the thirst of the throat, Though that he the wildest and worst Of physical pangs—that smote Alone to the heart of Christ, Wringing the one wild cry “I thirst!” from His agony, While the soldiers drank and diced: Not the thirst benign That calls the worker to wine; Not the bodily thirst (Though that be frenzy accurst) When the mouth is full of sand, And the eyes are gummed up, and the ears Trick the soul till it hears Water, water at hand, When a man will dig his nails In his breast, and drink the blood Already that clots and stales Ere his tongue can tip its flood, When the sun is a living devil Vomiting vats of evil, And the moon and the night but mock The wretch on his barren rock, And the dome of heaven high-arched Like his mouth is arid and parched— And the caves of his heart high-spanned Are choked with alkali sand!
Not this! but a thirst uncharted; Body and soul alike Traitors turned black-hearted, Seeking a space to strike In a victim already attuned To one vast chord of wound; Every separate bone Cold, an incarnate groan Distilled from the icy sperm Of Hell’s implacable worm; Every drop of the river Of blood aflame and a-quiver With poison secret and sour— With a sudden twitch at the last Like certain jagged daggers. (With blood-shot eyes dull-glassed The screaming Malay staggers Through his village aghast). So blood wrenches its pain Sardonic through heart and brain. Every separate nerve Awake and alert, on a curve Whose asymptote’s name is “never” In a hyperbolic “for ever” A bitten and burning snake Striking its venom within it,
As if it might serve to slake The pain for the tithe of a minute. Awake, for ever awake! Awake as one never is While sleep is a possible end, Awake in the void, the abyss Whose thirst is an echo of this That martyrs, world without end, (World without end, amen!) The man that falters and yields For the proverb’s “month and an hour” To the lure of the snow-starred fields Where the opium poppy’s aflower.
Only the prick of a needle Charged from a wizard well! Is this sufficient to wheedle A soul from heaven to hell? Was man’s spirit weaned From fear of its ghosts and gods To fawn at the feet of a fiend? Is it such terrible odds— The heir of ages of wonder, The crown of earth for an hour, The master of tide and thunder Against the juice of a flower? Ay! in the roar and the rattle Of all the armies of sin, This is the only battle He never was known to win.
Slave to the thirst—not thirst As here it is weakly written, Not thirst in the brain black-bitten, In the soul more sorely smitten! One dare not think of the worst! Beyond the raging and raving Hell of the physical craving Lies, in the brain benumbed. At the end of time and space, An abyss, unmeasured, unplumbed— The haunt of a face
She it is, she, that found me In the morphia honeymoon; With silk and steel she bound me, In her poisonous milk she drowned me, Even now her arms surround me, Stifling me into the swoon That still—but oh, how rarely!— Comes at the thrust of the needle, Steadily stares and squarely, Nor needs to fondle and wheedle Her slave agasp for a kiss, Her’s whose horror is his That knows that viper womb, Speckled and barred with black On its rusty amber scales, Is his tomb— The straining, groaning, rack On which he wails—he wails!
Her cranial dome is vaulted. Her mad Mongolian eyes Aslant with the ecstasies Of things immune, exalted Far beyond stars and skies, Slits of amber and jet— Her snout for the quarry set Fleshy and heavy and gross, Bestial, broken across, And below it her mouth that drips Blood from the lips That hide the fangs of a snake, Drips on venomous udders Mountainous flanks that fret, And the spirit sickens and shudders At the hint of a worse thing yet.
Olya! the golden bait Barbed with infinite pain, Fatal, fanatical mate Of a poisoned body and brain! Olya, the name that leers Its lecherous longing and knavery, Whispers in crazing ears The secret spell of her slavery.
Horror indeed intense, Seduction ever intenser, Swinging the smoke of sense From the bowl of a smouldering censer! Behind me, behind and above, She stands, that mirror of love. Her fingers are supple-jointed; Her nails are polished and pointed, And tipped with spurs of gold: With them she rowels the brain. Her lust is critical, cold; And her Chinese cheeks are pale, As she daintily picks, profane With her octopus lips, and the teeth Jagged and black beneath, Pulp and blood from a nail.
One swift prick was enough In days gone by to invoke her: She was incarnate love In the hours when I first awoke her. Little by little I found The truth of her, stripped of clothing, Bitter beyond all bound, Leprous beyond all loathing. Black, the plague of the pit, Her pustules visibly fester, Cancerous kisses that bit As the asp caressed her.
Dragon of lure and dread, Tiger of fury and lust, The quick in chains to the dead, The slime alive in the dust, Brazen shame like a flame, An orgy of pregnant pollution With hate beyond aim or name— Orgasm, death, dissolution! Know you now why her eyes So fearfully glaze, beholding Terrors and infamies Like filthy flowers unfolding? Laughter widowed of ease, Agony barred from sadness, Death defeated of peace, Is she not madness?
She waits for me, lazily leering, As moon goes murdering moon; The moon of her triumph is nearing: She will have me wholly soon.
• • • • •
And you, you puritan others, Who have missed the morphia craving, Cry scorn if I call you brothers, Curl lip at my maniac raving, Fools, seven times beguiled, You have not known her? Well! There was never a need she smiled To harry you into hell!
Morphia is but one Spark of its secular fire, She is the single sun— Type of all desire! All that you would, you are— And that is the crown of a craving. You are slaves of the wormwood star. Analysed, reason is raving. Feeling, examined, is pain. What heaven were to hope for a doubt of it Life is anguish, insane; And death is—not a way-out of it!
AD SPIRITUM SANCTUM (a fragment)
Seed of the Stars! Thou life of space, soul of the universe, Immanence, being beyond bars, Most individual, no two selves the same, Most universal, selves in self to immerse. One, core and crown of flames, Many, nay, all that flame's irradiation Everywhere, being centre without station; Nowhere, circumference of sphere unbounded Not moving, not extended, perfect point, Sole oil world-virgin womb to anoint, Thee I invoke not—ecstasy confounded By its own rapture!—Thee I worship not, For Thou, in all these modes of gramarye One, many, all and naught, Found without being sought, Virgin beneath the myriad mystery Of robes all-coloured, unstained radiance, Sense sealed from sense, saint, god and trance, In one of these three, yea, thou, infinity, Art I.
I know thee not, for Thou art naught to know, And thou art Knowledge and the Crown above, And beyond that Thy shadow yet below Thine exaltation, source and seed of love And outpouring of love, and father still Of love yet more, determinant of love, And love itself, and beyond all these things, O dove divine of all-transcending wings, Rising, descending, yet unmoving dove All-comprehending in Thy will Beneath, above, around, yet still the centre Of the one orb where naught may enter, For that all lies within, and yet is naught; Thought thou art, for thou hast ended thought As though are being—and hast begotten being Upon Thyself, and therefore being is not; All-mighty and all-loving and all-seeing Light of one substance, serpent of one coil, Spiral supreme and prime, the sun, the mote, Tune of all gamuts yet one note, Chancel and nave, altar and priest, Communicant and feast— Thou grail and wine, thou vial and oil, Thou censer and perfume, Thou shrine and god, initiate and tomb, Ciborium and host, Men call Thee, in the glory and the gloom, When they would shudder most and kindle most, The Holy Ghost.
REASONER AND RIMER To BRUGSCH BEY
Who scientifically observes The solar plexus of the slug, Of Astacus the gastric nerves, The flat flagella of the bug, Comes, so they say, at last to doubt If man has soul, or is but messes. The latter thesis reasoned out; The former but romantic guesses!
A friend put it once to Kant: "If I the atheist should rise Again, I have, you're bound to grant, A pleasant and unlooked surprise. If not, no odds. But Israfel Wakes you—mere satisfaction's ointment. If not, you've wasted earth as well. Here, sorrow; and, there, disappointment."
Kant did not answer, they report. Demosthenes denounce a dolly? One is not bound to make retort On fools according to their folly. If they are right, and filth is truth, When I am dead, I shall not know it. But while I live I keep my youth By being—in their teeth—a poet.
EPIGRAM (From the German.)
Who loves the truth had better stand, Rein and pommel in his hand: Who thinks the truth is wise to put Ready in stirrup riding-boot: Who speaks the truth is safe—if springs From his back a pair of wings!
HYMN TO PAN
εφριξ ερωτι περιαρχησ δ ανεπτομαν ιω ιω Παν Παν ω Παν Πανλιπ αλιπλαγχτε, Κυλλανιασ χιονοχτυποι πετραιασ απο δειραδοσ φανηθ, ω θεων χοροποι αναξ Soph. Aj.
Thrill with lissome lust of the light, O man! My man! Come careering out of the night Of Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan! Come over the sea From Sicily and from Arcady! Roaming as Bacchus, with fauns and pards And nymphs and satyrs for thy guards, On a milk-white ass, come over the sea To me, to me, Come with Apollo in bridal dress (Shepherdess and pythoness) Come with Artemis, silken shod, And wash thy white thigh, beautiful God, In the moon of the woods, on the marble mount, The dimpled dawn of the amber fount! Dip the purple of passionate prayer In the crimson shrine, the scarlet snare, The soul that startles in eyes of blue To watch thy wantonness weeping through The tangled grove, the gnarled bole Of the living tree that is spirit and soul And body and brain—come over the sea, (Io Pan! Io Pan!) Devil or god, to me, to me, My man! my man! Come with trumpets sounding shrill Over the hill! Come with drums low muttering From the spring! Come with flute and come with pipe! Am I not ripe? I, who wait and writhe and wrestle With air that hath no boughs to nestle My body, weary of empty clasp, Strong as a lion and sharp as an asp— Come, O come! I am numb With the lonely lust of devildom. Thrust the sword through the galling fetter, All-devourer, all-begetter; Give me the sign of the Open Eye, And the token erect of thorny thigh, And the word of madness and mystery, O Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan Pan! Pan, I am a man: Do as thou wilt, as a great god can, O Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! I am awake In the grip of the snake. The eagle slashes with beak and claw; The gods withdraw: The great beasts come, Io Pan! I am borne To death on the horn Of the Unicorn. I am Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan! I am thy mate, I am thy man, Goat of thy flock, I am gold, I am god, Flesh to thy bone, flower to thy rod. With hoofs of steel I race on the rocks Through solstice stubborn to equinox. And I rave; and I rape and I rip and I rend Everlasting, world without end, Mannikin, maiden, Mænad, man, In the might of Pan. Io Pan! Io Pan Pan! Pan! Io Pan!
Toussaint. I have walked through the Garden of the Luxembourg. It is like one's dancing-girl in the morning. The fallen leaves, the tangle of her dyed orange hair; the flowers agonizing, and monitorial. Ah me!
I stand now by the tomb of my father—of Charles Baudelaire. Reverence I bring, and memory, and that seed whereof I am generator and guardian.
Flowers I bring—flowers of that South windless and sea-washed and sun-embraced whereof He knew in manifold unique vision.
Oh! my father! my father!
Thou art dead: I die: That liveth and shall live for evermore while Our Father the Sun nourisheth Earth with His bounty.
Thou didst understand all things, thou least understood of all men! Thou sawest all things beautiful—as they are: thou didst repine at all the futile restlessness of those things.
No aim! No purpose! No will! Scarce one man in ten million with aspiration of cosmic scope. All waste. All loss. All fatuity—the sacred fire but ignis fatuus—the sun but limelight of how sorry a stage! Thou hadst that infinite distaste for the relative, that infinite craving for the absolute that is the mark (is, for the two are one) of all the saints. Saint, through what sins who knows or cares? "The chief of sinners is the chief of saints." I no longer remember what poet, what creator of truth from illusion, said this.
My father saw all things very good, as God upon His Sabbath of Creation. Only he could not understand why they should seek evermore to be other than they are. He could not conceive change as stability, could not understand that constancy of energy is rest. Therefore my little finger is thicker than my father's loins. But, O my Father, it was Thou that didst inspire me, Thou that didst bestow upon me the Unique Inheritance, Thou that didst instil in me the Hunger of the Infinite, Thou that didst beget me, after Swinburne thy first-begotten that died at his puberty, Thou that didst bestow on me the chiefest of all gifts, never to be satisfied with whatever attainment might be mine.
I am eight-and-thirty years of age; I have bestridden the world; from its seas to its mountains I have known all, I have tasted all, I have enjoyed all, I have built up all into my being; and yet I keep the burning lust of youth, the craving, the desolation, the triumph and the despair. Thou knowest, O my father, dead though Thou liest beneath the ill-carven stone of the sham sculptor; that I am Thou. In me, conscious as subconscious, burns That immortal, That insatiable fire that is a serpent, that is an eagle, that is a dove. I impregnate a thousand virgins immaculate; I am enthroned on the right-hand of God; I am the First and the Last, creator, preserver, destroyer, redeemer. And still I hunger; still I, who have conquered being as I have conquered form, lust for what is beyond being and form, beyond matter and motion, beyond That which neither is nor is not That which both is not and is.
Hail unto Thee, my father, Hail and fare well!
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