—O take thy fill of looking on this snow
In which thy heart finds such delicious death;
Do out thine utmost revel on the bloom
Of this rare flower’s beauty, now at full;
Whose summer is just perfected to-night
And laid before thee, heightened with the tint
Of first mysterious sadness, like a touch
Of far-off autumns. Do not shun that mouth:
For there, indeed, a thing most dainty-sweet—
The last kiss that was sown a precious seed
By Love at the beginning—waits for thee,
The fullest, the most perfect of them all.
The earth will never fashion forth, and Love
Will never with his summer paint again
So beautiful a flower.
I am clasped
With such arms as I would might hold me so
For evermore in heaven. All around,
The strange unearthly fragrance of her hair
Is coming up, and, with an element
Divine as some transparent rosy cloud,
Enwrapping both of us; ay, and, as though—
A very cloud of magic—it had borne
Us, lifted far away from thought, and life,
And days, and earthliness—we seem to voyage
Through most ethereal atmospheres, and seas
Upon whose soft sustaining waves we drift,
And draw no sound from either distant shore
Of ending or beginning: and the bliss,
Unspeakable and perfect, that we feel
Seems making and remaking evermore
Our souls through this eternity.
Alas!
One little thread—I strive in vain to break—
Is holding me: a memory, a thought,
The pricking of a half-numbed wound through sleep,
The constant teazing of a wingéd thing,
The bitterness wherewith some ceaseless fang
Of life gnaws through, and breaks our dream of it—
Some such pursues and racks me. But ’tis well:
I know the dream is mine to make my own;
I know what dragon guards this paradise,
And with what paltry lies he fools mankind.
Ah, how the universe must jeer to see
All men so smoothly cheated of their own!—
And when I slay this dragon, I have all.
I cannot stir now. Many a knotted tress
Is on me, like a thousand-threaded chain
Twined many times about my limbs. I dream
No more: I feel her small and gliding hands
Seek mine; and while the burning rapid words
Her full heart furnishes hiss in mine ear,
My sight is peering blindly through the dark
Of her vast hair—a cavernous abyss
Of blackness traversed by mad shooting sparks
Or fearful gleams of blood.—What things she says!
“—Let this be as it were my bridal night,
If you doubt all the Past. I am yours now;
Take this for the beginning, and trust me;
I will be yours for ever,—not a look,
A word, a thought shall e’er dishonour you.”—
And, if I had not heard this very thing
Before, once, twice, innumerable times,
I should not plunge as I do now, my head
Still deeper in the fathomless dark hair,
And see tears falling from me—as it seems—
To fall on through a drear eternity.
But, hark, another voice! Whence comes it?—Whence?
From here, beneath the pillow; yes, ’tis harsh
And not like hers; but speaks a sweet thing—this:
I swear for Her it shall be so: trust Me!
Ah, yes—my Love, my own, I answer you;
I part with all the Past, forgive, deny,
Refuse to see it. All my soul is yours;
I never loved a moment in this world,
But what was love was wholly meant for you.
Yea, even before I saw you as you are,
Or knew your name, the vaguest breaths of love
Were but sent forward to me from the days
When you should come, preparing me for you.
I know in truth there never was a time
Wherein I saw no part of you—nor sign
To love you by; for all my sun, my light,
My flowers, my world would be the saddest blank,
The day you were not; you have these in you,
And are yourself in them; and, on the day
You go, you take them all away with you;
And so ’twas you I saw when I saw them
And said:—“That Lady mine shall have a head
Like yonder drooping lily on whose white
The summer’s breath may never set a stain;
And She shall have a heaven for her hair
As deep, and dark, and splendid, as the one
I dream beneath; and She shall have such eyes
As ever seem to me those still blue lakes
I come on in the twilight of the woods
And find wide open under the thick fringe
Of violets—that fascinate me so
With gazing on me; yes, and, for her smile,
She shall but use that magic of the sun
That so transfigures all the day with light,
And gives my heart already such a thrill
As if She smiled at me:”—my Love, ’twas you
I saw then, dreamed of, waited for; ’twas you;
My heart attests it, looking on you now.—
So this of mine is such a perfect love
You see, it could not change nor turn away;—
It is the only love God made for you,
As you He made for me and from the first
Revealed to me. Therefore it cannot be
That you are false to me,—that I no way
Can save and keep you mine—you whom He gave
To me for ever, to be brought as mine
Before Him at the last. My precious one,
You are all worthy of me—are my crown
Untarnished, perfect, for you have not sinned;
’Tis I have sinned,—not being strong at once
To save both pure in you. Did not your lips
Completely make you mine of your own will?
Did you not swear yourself to me at first,
Yea, in God’s name, before him? So that I—
Yes, I, have let you, all against your heart,
Be brought to do sad things you would have shunned;
Because I had the way, and used it not,
To keep you from them.—Ah, I curse myself!
—My own, my Love!—those gentle words of yours,
Those promises—repeat them; yes, once more:
You will be mine; you are mine; yes, my Love,
I do believe you now; I may, I can—
(For that sings under the pillow; believe Me!—)
I bless and kiss you for them all.
She sleeps.
The Steel is singing to me now; its voice
Creeps through and through;—go on, she cannot hear—
The things it sings are death and love; ay, love
That death keeps true;—She sleeps, she cannot hear.
There is no sort of madness in my brain;
But rather a great strength, a calm, as though
A more than human spirit dwelt with mine.
And yet I do perceive that, since last night,
My eyes have been bewildered with the glare
Of mighty blades and swords that seem to whirl
And strike around me, and transform the world
With an exceeding splendour cold and bare;
A thousand films are as it were cut through;
And all the beauty, supernatural
And real of things seems only to endure.
The Steel is an immense magician: yes—
Love, Beauty, Life—a touch can change them all
And make them wholly fit for me and great.
See now where it is gleaming through her hair!
’Tis like a fair barbaric ornament
Ablaze with glancing points of diamonds
Stuck in and out between the writhing black.
Or, rather, ’tis as fearful and as bright
As some fierce snake of azure lightning curled
Sinister under the dark mass of night,
That ever, with his sudden forkéd flash
Piercing some crevice, doth illumine it.