And writhing, fain
And like a triumphing lover, he shall take
His fill where no high memory lives to make
His obscene victory vain.
VIII
To A. J. H.
Time and the Earth—
The old Father and Mother—
Their teeming accomplished,
Their purpose fulfilled,
Close with a smile
For a moment of kindness,
Ere for the winter
They settle to sleep.
Failing yet gracious,
Slow pacing, soon homing,
A patriarch that strolls
Through the tents of his children,
The Sun, as he journeys
His round on the lower
Ascents of the blue,
Washes the roofs
And the hillsides with clarity;
Charms the dark pools
Till they break into pictures;
Scatters magnificent
Alms to the beggar trees;
Touches the mist-folk,
That crowd to his escort,
Into translucencies
Radiant and ravishing:
As with the visible
Spirit of Summer
Gloriously vaporised,
Visioned in gold!
Love, though the fallen leaf
Mark, and the fleeting light
And the loud, loitering
Footfall of darkness
Sign to the heart
Of the passage of destiny,
Here is the ghost
Of a summer that lived for us,
Here is a promise
Of summers to be.
IX
‘As like the Woman as you can’—
(Thus the New Adam was beguiled)—
‘So shall you touch the Perfect Man’—
(God in the Garden heard and smiled).
‘Your father perished with his day:
‘A clot of passions fierce and blind,
‘He fought, he hacked, he crushed his way:
‘Your muscles, Child, must be of mind.
‘The Brute that lurks and irks within,
‘How, till you have him gagged and bound,
‘Escape the foullest form of Sin?’
(God in the Garden laughed and frowned).
‘So vile, so rank, the bestial mood
‘In which the race is bid to be,
‘It wrecks the Rarer Womanhood:
‘Live, therefore, you, for Purity!
‘Take for your mate no gallant croup,
‘No girl all grace and natural will:
‘To work her mission were to stoop,
‘Maybe to lapse, from Well to Ill.
‘Choose one of whom your grosser make’—
(God in the Garden laughed outright)—
‘The true refining touch may take,
‘Till both attain to Life’s last height.
‘There, equal, purged of soul and sense.
‘Beneficent, high-thinking, just,
‘Beyond the appeal of Violence,
‘Incapable of common Lust,
‘In mental Marriage still prevail’—
(God in the Garden hid His face)—
‘Till you achieve that Female-Male
‘In Which shall culminate the race.’