Amores Part 4

My little love, my dearest Twice have you issued me, Once from your womb, sweet mother, Once from myself, to be Free of all hearts, my darling, Of each heart's home-life free.

And so, my love, my mother, I shall always be true to you; Twice I am born, my dearest, To life, and to death, in you; And this is the life hereafter Wherein I am true.

I kiss you good-bye, my darling, Our ways are different now; You are a seed in the night-time, I am a man, to plough The difficult glebe of the future For G.o.d to endow.

I kiss you good-bye, my dearest, It is finished between us here.

Oh, if I were calm as you are, Sweet and still on your bier!

G.o.d, if I had not to leave you Alone, my dear!

Let the last word be uttered, Oh grant the farewell is said!

Spare me the strength to leave you Now you are dead.

I must go, but my soul lies helpless Beside your bed.

AT THE WINDOW

THE pine-trees bend to listen to the autumn wind as it mutters Something which sets the black poplars ashake with hysterical laughter; While slowly the house of day is closing its eastern shutters.

Further down the valley the cl.u.s.tered tombstones recede, Winding about their dimness the mist's grey cerements, after The street lamps in the darkness have suddenly started to bleed.

The leaves fly over the window and utter a word as they pa.s.s To the face that leans from the darkness, intent, with two dark-filled eyes That watch for ever earnestly from behind the window gla.s.s.

DRUNK

Too far away, oh love, I know, To save me from this haunted road, Whose lofty roses break and blow On a night-sky bent with a load

Of lights: each solitary rose, Each arc-lamp golden does expose Ghost beyond ghost of a blossom, shows Night blenched with a thousand snows.

Of hawthorn and of lilac trees, White lilac; shows discoloured night Dripping with all the golden lees Laburnum gives back to light

And shows the red of hawthorn set On high to the purple heaven of night, Like flags in blenched blood newly wet, Blood shed in the noiseless fight.

Of life for love and love for life, Of hunger for a little food, Of kissing, lost for want of a wife Long ago, long ago wooed.

Too far away you are, my love, To steady my brain in this phantom show That pa.s.ses the nightly road above And returns again below.

The enormous cliff of horse-chestnut trees Has poised on each of its ledges An erect small girl looking down at me; White-night-gowned little chits I see, And they peep at me over the edges Of the leaves as though they would leap, should I call Them down to my arms; "But, child, you're too small for me, too small Your little charms."

White little sheaves of night-gowned maids, Some other will thresh you out!

And I see leaning from the shades A lilac like a lady there, who braids Her white mantilla about Her face, and forward leans to catch the sight Of a man's face, Gracefully sighing through the white Flowery mantilla of lace.

And another lilac in purple veiled Discreetly, all recklessly calls In a low, shocking perfume, to know who has hailed Her forth from the night: my strength has failed In her voice, my weak heart falls: Oh, and see the laburnum shimmering Her draperies down, As if she would slip the gold, and glimmering White, stand naked of gown.

The pageant of flowery trees above The street pale-pa.s.sionate goes, And back again down the pavement, Love In a lesser pageant flows.

Two and two are the folk that walk, They pa.s.s in a half embrace Of linked bodies, and they talk With dark face leaning to face.

Come then, my love, come as you will Along this haunted road, Be whom you will, my darling, I shall Keep with you the troth I trowed.

SORROW

WHY does the thin grey strand Floating up from the forgotten Cigarette between my fingers, Why does it trouble me?

Ah, you will understand; When I carried my mother downstairs, A few times only, at the beginning Of her soft-foot malady,

I should find, for a reprimand To my gaiety, a few long grey hairs On the breast of my coat; and one by one I let them float up the dark chimney.

DOLOR OF AUTUMN

THE acrid scents of autumn, Reminiscent of slinking beasts, make me fear Everything, tear-trembling stars of autumn And the snore of the night in my ear.

For suddenly, flush-fallen, All my life, in a rush Of shedding away, has left me Naked, exposed on the bush.

I, on the bush of the globe, Like a newly-naked berry, shrink Disclosed: but I also am prowling As well in the scents that slink

Abroad: I in this naked berry Of flesh that stands dismayed on the bush; And I in the stealthy, brindled odours Prowling about the lush

And acrid night of autumn; My soul, along with the rout, Rank and treacherous, prowling, Disseminated out.

For the night, with a great breath intaken, Has taken my spirit outside Me, till I reel with disseminated consciousness, Like a man who has died.

At the same time I stand exposed Here on the bush of the globe, A newly-naked berry of flesh For the stars to probe.

THE INHERITANCE

SINCE you did depart Out of my reach, my darling, Into the hidden, I see each shadow start With recognition, and I Am wonder-ridden.

I am dazed with the farewell, But I scarcely feel your loss.

You left me a gift Of tongues, so the shadows tell Me things, and silences toss Me their drift.

You sent me a cloven fire Out of death, and it burns in the draught Of the breathing hosts, Kindles the darkening pyre For the sorrowful, till strange brands waft Like candid ghosts.

Form after form, in the streets Waves like a ghost along, Kindled to me; The star above the house-top greets Me every eve with a long Song fierily.

All day long, the town Glimmers with subtle ghosts Going up and down In a common, prison-like dress; But their daunted looking flickers To me, and I answer, Yes!

So I am not lonely nor sad Although bereaved of you, My little love.

I move among a kinsfolk clad With words, but the dream shows through As they move.

SILENCE

SINCE I lost you I am silence-haunted, Sounds wave their little wings A moment, then in weariness settle On the flood that soundless swings.