Half mad to batten on their own devilries,
And mark what heaven-born splendours they could quell,
She held him quivering in a mesh of lies,
And in soft broken speech began to tell—
There as, against her heart, throbbing he lay—
The truth that hurled his soul from heaven to hell.
Quivering, she watched the subtle whip-lash flay
The white flesh of the dreams of his pure youth;
Then sucked the blood and left them cold as clay.
Luxuriously she lashed him with the truth.
Against his mouth her subtle mouth she set
To show, as through a mask, O, without ruth,
As through a cold clay mask (brackish and wet
With what strange tears!) it was not his, not his,
The kiss that through his quivering lips she met.
Kissing him, "Thus," she whispered, "did he kiss.
Ah, is the sweetness like a sword, then, sweet?
Last night—ah, kiss again—aching with bliss,
Thus was I made his own, from head to feet."
—A sudden agony thro' his body swept
Tempestuously.—"Our wedded pulses beat
Like this and this; and then, at dawn, he slept."
She laughed, pouting her lips against his cheek
To drink; and, as in answer, Marlowe wept.
As a dead man in dreams, he heard her speak.
Clasped in the bitter grave of that sweet clay,
Wedded and one with it, he moaned. Too weak
Even to lift his head, sobbing, he lay,
Then, slowly, as their breathings rose and fell,
He felt the storm of passion, far away,