Chapter IV: Epilogue

PATIENCE, little Heart. One day a heavy, June-hot woman Will enter and shut the door to stay.

And when your stifling heart would summon Cool, lonely night, her roused breasts will keep the night at bay, Sitting in your room like two tiger-lilies Flaming on after sunset, Destroying the cool, lonely night with the glow of their hot twilight; There in the morning, still, while the fierce strange scent comes yet Stronger, hot and red; till you thirst for the daffodillies With an anguished, husky thirst that you cannot assuage, When the daffodillies are dead, and a woman of the dog-days holds you in gage. Patience, little Heart.

A BABY RUNNING BAREFOOT

WHEN the bare feet of the baby beat across the grass The little white feet nod like white flowers in the wind, They poise and run like ripples lapping across the water; And the sight of their white play among the grass Is like a little robin's song, winsome, Or as two white butterflies settle in the cup of one flower For a moment, then away with a flutter of wings.

I long for the baby to wander hither to me Like a wind-shadow wandering over the water, So that she can stand on my knee With her little bare feet in my hands, Cool like syringa buds, Firm and silken like pink young peony flowers.

DISCIPLINE

IT is stormy, and raindrops cling like silver bees to
the pane,
The thin sycamores in the playground are swinging
with flattened leaves;
The heads of the boys move dimly through a yellow
gloom that stains
The class; over them all the dark net of my discipline
weaves.

It is no good, dear, gentleness and forbearance, I
endured too long.
I have pushed my hands in the dark soil, under the
flower of my soul
And the gentle leaves, and have felt where the roots
are strong
Fixed in the darkness, grappling for the deep soil's
little control.

And there is the dark, my darling, where the roots
are entangled and fight
Each one for its hold on the oblivious darkness, I
know that there
In the night where we first have being, before we rise
on the light,
We are not brothers, my darling, we fight and we
do not spare.

And in the original dark the roots cannot keep,
cannot know
Any communion whatever, but they bind themselves
on to the dark,
And drawing the darkness together, crush from it a
twilight, a slow
Burning that breaks at last into leaves and a flower's
bright spark.

I came to the boys with love, my dear, but they
turned on me;
I came with gentleness, with my heart 'twixt my
hands like a bowl,
Like a loving-cup, like a grail, but they spilt it
triumphantly
And tried to break the vessel, and to violate my
soul.

But what have I to do with the boys, deep down in
my soul, my love?
I throw from out of the darkness my self like a flower
into sight,
Like a flower from out of the night-time, I lift my
face, and those
Who will may warm their hands at me, comfort this
night.

But whosoever would pluck apart my flowering shall burn their hands, So flowers are tender folk, and roots can only hide, Yet my flowerings of love are a fire, and the scarlet brands Of my love are roses to look at, but flames to chide.

But comfort me, my love, now the fires are low, Now I am broken to earth like a winter destroyed, and all Myself but a knowledge of roots, of roots in the dark that throw A net on the undersoil, which lies passive beneath their thrall.

But comfort me, for henceforth my love is yours alone, To you alone will I offer the bowl, to you will I give My essence only, but love me, and I will atone To you for my general loving, atone as long as I live.

SCENT OF IRISES

A FAINT, sickening scent of irises Persists all morning. Here in a jar on the table A fine proud spike of purple irises Rising above the class-room litter, makes me unable To see the class's lifted and bended faces Save in a broken pattern, amid purple and gold and sable.

I can smell the gorgeous bog-end, in its breathless Dazzle of may-blobs, when the marigold glare overcast you With fire on your cheeks and your brow and your chin as you dipped Your face in the marigold bunch, to touch and contrast you, Your own dark mouth with the bridal faint lady-smocks, Dissolved on the golden sorcery you should not outlast.

You amid the bog-end's yellow incantation, You sitting in the cowslips of the meadow above, Me, your shadow on the bog-flame, flowery may-blobs, Me full length in the cowslips, muttering you love; You, your soul like a lady-smock, lost, evanescent, You with your face all rich, like the sheen of a dove.

You are always asking, do I remember, remember The butter-cup bog-end where the flowers rose up And kindled you over deep with a cast of gold? You ask again, do the healing days close up The open darkness which then drew us in, The dark which then drank up our brimming cup.

You upon the dry, dead beech-leaves, in the fire of night Burnt like a sacrifice; you invisible; Only the fire of darkness, and the scent of you! --And yes, thank God, it still is possible The healing days shall close the darkness up Wherein we fainted like a smoke or dew.

Like vapour, dew, or poison. Now, thank God, The fire of night is gone, and your face is ash Indistinguishable on the grey, chill day; The night has burnt us out, at last the good Dark fire burns on untroubled, without clash Of you upon the dead leaves saying me Yea.

THE PROPHET

AH, my darling, when over the purple horizon shall
loom
The shrouded mother of a new idea, men hide their
faces,
Cry out and fend her off, as she seeks her procreant
groom,
Wounding themselves against her, denying her
fecund embraces.

LAST WORDS TO MIRIAM

YOURS is the shame and sorrow But the disgrace is mine; Your love was dark and thorough, Mine was the love of the sun for a flower He creates with his shine.

I was diligent to explore you, Blossom you stalk by stalk, Till my fire of creation bore you Shrivelling down in the final dour Anguish--then I suffered a balk.

I knew your pain, and it broke My fine, craftsman's nerve; Your body quailed at my stroke, And my courage failed to give you the last Fine torture you did deserve.

You are shapely, you are adorned, But opaque and dull in the flesh, Who, had I but pierced with the thorned Fire-threshing anguish, were fused and cast In a lovely illumined mesh.

Like a painted window: the best
Suffering burnt through your flesh,
Undrossed it and left it blest
With a quivering sweet wisdom of grace: but
now
Who shall take you afresh?

Now who will burn you free From your body's terrors and dross, Since the fire has failed in me? What man will stoop in your flesh to plough The shrieking cross?

A mute, nearly beautiful thing Is your face, that fills me with shame As I see it hardening, Warping the perfect image of God, And darkening my eternal fame.

MYSTERY

Now I am all One bowl of kisses, Such as the tall Slim votaresses Of Egypt filled For a God's excesses.

I lift to you My bowl of kisses, And through the temple's Blue recesses Cry out to you In wild caresses.

And to my lips' Bright crimson rim The passion slips, And down my slim White body drips The shining hymn.

And still before The altar I Exult the bowl Brimful, and cry To you to stoop And drink, Most High.

Oh drink me up That I may be Within your cup Like a mystery, Like wine that is still In ecstasy.

Glimmering still In ecstasy, Commingled wines Of you and me In one fulfil The mystery.

PATIENCE

A WIND comes from the north Blowing little flocks of birds Like spray across the town, And a train, roaring forth, Rushes stampeding down With cries and flying curds Of steam, out of the darkening north.

Whither I turn and set Like a needle steadfastly, Waiting ever to get The news that she is free; But ever fixed, as yet, To the lode of her agony.

BALLAD OF ANOTHER OPHELIA

OH the green glimmer of apples in the orchard, Lamps in a wash of rain! Oh the wet walk of my brown hen through the stack-yard, Oh tears on the window pane!

Nothing now will ripen the bright green apples, Full of disappointment and of rain, Brackish they will taste, of tears, when the yellow dapples Of autumn tell the withered tale again.

All round the yard it is cluck, my brown hen, Cluck, and the rain-wet wings, Cluck, my marigold bird, and again Cluck for your yellow darlings.

For the grey rat found the gold thirteen Huddled away in the dark, Flutter for a moment, oh the beast is quick and keen, Extinct one yellow-fluffy spark.

Once I had a lover bright like running water, Once his face was laughing like the sky; Open like the sky looking down in all its laughter On the buttercups, and the buttercups was I.

What, then, is there hidden in the skirts of all the blossom? What is peeping from your wings, oh mother hen? 'Tis the sun who asks the question, in a lovely haste for wisdom; What a lovely haste for wisdom is in men!

Yea, but it is cruel when undressed is all the blossom, And her shift is lying white upon the floor, That a grey one, like a shadow, like a rat, a thief, a rain-storm, Creeps upon her then and gathers in his store.

Oh the grey garner that is full of half-grown apples, Oh the golden sparkles laid extinct! And oh, behind the cloud-sheaves, like yellow autumn dapples, Did you see the wicked sun that winked!

RESTLESSNESS

AT the open door of the room I stand and look at the night, Hold my hand to catch the raindrops, that slant into sight, Arriving grey from the darkness above suddenly into the light of the room. I will escape from the hollow room, the box of light, And be out in the bewildering darkness, which is always fecund, which might Mate my hungry soul with a germ of its womb.

I will go out to the night, as a man goes down to the shore To draw his net through the surfs thin line, at the dawn before The sun warms the sea, little, lonely and sad, sifting the sobbing tide. I will sift the surf that edges the night, with my net, the four Strands of my eyes and my lips and my hands and my feet, sifting the store Of flotsam until my soul is tired or satisfied.

I will catch in my eyes' quick net The faces of all the women as they go past, Bend over them with my soul, to cherish the wet Cheeks and wet hair a moment, saying: "Is it you?" Looking earnestly under the dark umbrellas, held fast Against the wind; and if, where the lamplight blew Its rainy swill about us, she answered me With a laugh and a merry wildness that it was she Who was seeking me, and had found me at last to free Me now from the stunting bonds of my chastity, How glad I should be!

Moving along in the mysterious ebb of the night Pass the men whose eyes are shut like anemones in a dark pool; Why don't they open with vision and speak to me, what have they in sight? Why do I wander aimless among them, desirous fool?

I can always linger over the huddled books on the
stalls,
Always gladden my amorous fingers with the touch
of their leaves,
Always kneel in courtship to the shelves in the
doorways, where falls
The shadow, always offer myself to one mistress,
who always receives.

But oh, it is not enough, it is all no good. There is something I want to feel in my running blood, Something I want to touch; I must hold my face to the rain, I must hold my face to the wind, and let it explain Me its life as it hurries in secret. I will trail my hands again through the drenched, cold leaves Till my hands are full of the chillness and touch of leaves, Till at length they induce me to sleep, and to forget.

A BABY ASLEEP AFTER PAIN

As a drenched, drowned bee Hangs numb and heavy from a bending flower, So clings to me My baby, her brown hair brushed with wet tears And laid against her cheek; Her soft white legs hanging heavily over my arm Swinging heavily to my movement as I walk. My sleeping baby hangs upon my life, Like a burden she hangs on me. She has always seemed so light, But now she is wet with tears and numb with pain Even her floating hair sinks heavily, Reaching downwards; As the wings of a drenched, drowned bee Are a heaviness, and a weariness.

ANXIETY

THE hoar-frost crumbles in the sun,
The crisping steam of a train
Melts in the air, while two black birds
Sweep past the window again.

Along the vacant road, a red
Bicycle approaches; I wait
In a thaw of anxiety, for the boy
To leap down at our gate.

He has passed us by; but is it
Relief that starts in my breast?
Or a deeper bruise of knowing that still
She has no rest.

THE PUNISHER