DIVINATION
I weary of your hesitating will;
This flicker of "should" and "should not" crazes me.
Rest from these vain debates of good and ill:
Let me your secret swift diviner be.
In the memorial blue dusk of sense,
Where, spirals of doves or wreaths of ravens, rise
Auguries sweet or dread, the blue dusk whence
The cresseted houses of the stars surprise
The heart with their mysterious horoscopes,
I know the issues ere great battles begin,
The ashen values of bright-burning hopes,
The ultimate hours of sacrifice or sin.
Do I obey the Wisdom? If I list,
I too, beloved, can play the casuist.
XXVII
SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS
Sometimes as Martha suddenly stood amazed
By Mary's mystic eyes, and sometimes as
That very dreamer Mary might have gazed
Upon the Daughter of Herodias,
The conscious Soul that other Soul discovers,
The strange idolator who still regrets
Golden Osiris, Tammuz lord of lovers,
Attis the sad white god of violets.
In jasper caves she lies behind her veils;
And jars of spice, and gilded ears of corn,
And wine-red roses and rose-red wine-grails
Feed her long trances while the far flutes mourn.
She lies and dreams daemonic passionate things:
Cherubim guard her gates with monstrous wings.
XXVIII
SATIETY
Ah! love me not with honey-sweet excesses,
With passionate prodigalities of praise,
With wreaths of daisied words and quaint caresses,
Adore me not in charming childish ways.
This pastoral is beautiful enough:
But never shall it antidote my drouth:
I want a reticent ironic Love
With smiling eyes and faintly mocking mouth.
Sweetness is best when bitterly 'tis bought:
So in Love's deadly duel I would not be
Victorious, and the peace I long have sought,
Sure knowledge of his great supremacy,
Would buy with pangs, like that bright cuirassier,
The queen-at-arms that knew the Peliad's spear.