Amores Part 6

And I, what fountain of fire am I among This leaping combustion of spring? My spirit is tossed About like a shadow buffeted in the throng Of flames, a shadow that's gone astray, and is lost.

REPROACH

HAD I but known yesterday, Helen, you could discharge the ache Out of the cloud; Had I known yesterday you could take The turgid electric ache away, Drink it up with your proud White body, as lovely white lightning Is drunk from an agonised sky by the earth, I might have hated you, Helen.

But since my limbs gushed full of fire, Since from out of my blood and bone Poured a heavy flame To you, earth of my atmosphere, stone Of my steel, lovely white flint of desire, You have no name.

Earth of my swaying atmosphere, Substance of my inconstant breath, I cannot but cleave to you.

Since you have drunken up the drear Painful electric storm, and death Is washed from the blue Of my eyes, I see you beautiful.

You are strong and pa.s.sive and beautiful, I come like winds that uncertain hover; But you Are the earth I hover over.

THE HANDS OF THE BETROTHED

HER tawny eyes are onyx of thoughtlessness, Hardened they are like gems in ancient modesty; Yea, and her mouth's prudent and crude caress Means even less than her many words to me.

Though her kiss betrays me also this, this only Consolation, that in her lips her blood at climax clips Two wild, dumb paws in anguish on the lonely Fruit of my heart, ere down, rebuked, it slips.

I know from her hardened lips that still her heart is Hungry for me, yet if I put my hand in her breast She puts me away, like a saleswoman whose mart is Endangered by the pilferer on his quest.

But her hands are still the woman, the large, strong hands Heavier than mine, yet like leverets caught in steel When I hold them; my still soul understands Their dumb confession of what her sort must feel.

For never her hands come nigh me but they lift Like heavy birds from the morning stubble, to settle Upon me like sleeping birds, like birds that shift Uneasily in their sleep, disturbing my mettle.

How caressingly she lays her hand on my knee, How strangely she tries to disown it, as it sinks In my flesh and bone and forages into me, How it stirs like a subtle stoat, whatever she thinks!

And often I see her clench her fingers tight And thrust her fists suppressed in the folds of her skirt; And sometimes, how she grasps her arms with her bright Big hands, as if surely her arms did hurt.

And I have seen her stand all unaware Pressing her spread hands over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, as she Would crush their mounds on her heart, to kill in there The pain that is her simple ache for me.

Her strong hands take my part, the part of a man To her; she crushes them into her bosom deep Where I should lie, and with her own strong span Closes her arms, that should fold me in sleep.

Ah, and she puts her hands upon the wall, Presses them there, and kisses her bright hands, Then lets her black hair loose, the darkness fall About her from her maiden-folded bands.

And sits in her own dark night of her bitter hair Dreaming--G.o.d knows of what, for to me she's the same Betrothed young lady who loves me, and takes care Of her womanly virtue and of my good name.

EXCURSION

I WONDER, can the night go by; Can this shot arrow of travel fly Shaft-golden with light, sheer into the sky Of a dawned to-morrow, Without ever sleep delivering us From each other, or loosing the dolorous Unfruitful sorrow!

What is it then that you can see That at the window endlessly You watch the red sparks whirl and flee And the night look through?

Your presence peering lonelily there Oppresses me so, I can hardly bear To share the train with you.

You hurt my heart-beats' privacy; I wish I could put you away from me; I suffocate in this intimacy, For all that I love you; How I have longed for this night in the train, Yet now every fibre of me cries in pain To G.o.d to remove you.

But surely my soul's best dream is still That one night pouring down shall swill Us away in an utter sleep, until We are one, smooth-rounded.

Yet closely bitten in to me Is this armour of stiff reluctancy That keeps me impounded.

So, dear love, when another night Pours on us, lift your fingers white And strip me naked, touch me light, Light, light all over.

For I ache most earnestly for your touch, Yet I cannot move, however much I would be your lover.

Night after night with a blemish of day Unblown and unblossomed has withered away; Come another night, come a new night, say Will you pluck me apart?

Will you open the amorous, aching bud Of my body, and loose the burning flood That would leap to you from my heart?

PERFIDY

HOLLOW rang the house when I knocked on the door, And I lingered on the threshold with my hand Upraised to knock and knock once more: Listening for the sound of her feet across the floor, Hollow re-echoed my heart.

The low-hung lamps stretched down the road With shadows drifting underneath, With a music of soft, melodious feet Quickening my hope as I hastened to meet The low-hung light of her eyes.

The golden lamps down the street went out, The last car trailed the night behind; And I in the darkness wandered about With a flutter of hope and of dark-shut doubt In the dying lamp of my love.

Two brown ponies trotting slowly Stopped at a dim-lit trough to drink: The dark van drummed down the distance slowly; While the city stars so dim and holy Drew nearer to search through the streets.

A hastening car swept shameful past, I saw her hid in the shadow, I saw her step to the curb, and fast Run to the silent door, where last I had stood with my hand uplifted.

She clung to the door in her haste to enter, Entered, and quickly cast It shut behind her, leaving the street aghast.

A SPIRITUAL WOMAN

CLOSE your eyes, my love, let me make you blind; They have taught you to see Only a mean arithmetic on the face of things, A cunning algebra in the faces of men, And G.o.d like geometry Completing his circles, and working cleverly.

I'll kiss you over the eyes till I kiss you blind; If I can--if any one could.

Then perhaps in the dark you'll have got what you want to find.

You've discovered so many bits, with your clever eyes, And I'm a kaleidoscope That you shake and shake, and yet it won't come to your mind.

Now stop carping at me.--But G.o.d, how I hate you!

Do you fear I shall swindle you?

Do you think if you take me as I am, that that will abate you Somehow?--so sad, so intrinsic, so spiritual, yet so cautious, you Must have me all in your will and your consciousness-- I hate you.

MATING

ROUND clouds roll in the arms of the wind, The round earth rolls in a clasp of blue sky, And see, where the budding hazels are thinned, The wild anemones lie In undulating shivers beneath the wind.

Over the blue of the waters ply White ducks, a living flotilla of cloud; And, look you, floating just thereby, The blue-gleamed drake stems proud Like Abraham, whose seed should multiply.

In the l.u.s.trous gleam of the water, there Scramble seven toads across the silk, obscure leaves, Seven toads that meet in the dusk to share The darkness that interweaves The sky and earth and water and live things everywhere.

Look now, through the woods where the beech-green spurts Like a storm of emerald snow, look, see A great bay stallion dances, skirts The bushes sumptuously, Going outward now in the spring to his brief deserts.

Ah love, with your rich, warm face aglow, What sudden expectation opens you So wide as you watch the catkins blow Their dust from the birch on the blue Lift of the pulsing wind--ah, tell me you know!

Ah, surely! Ah, sure from the golden sun A quickening, masculine gleam floats in to all Us creatures, people and flowers undone, Lying open under his thrall, As he begets the year in us. What, then, would you shun?

Why, I should think that from the earth there fly Fine thrills to the neighbour stars, fine yellow beams Thrown l.u.s.tily off from our full-blown, high Bursting globe of dreams, To quicken the spheres that are virgin still in the sky.