Chapter I: WONDER if with you, as it is with me,

If under your slipping words, that easily flow About you as a garment, easily, Your violent heart beats to and fro!

Long have I waited, never once confessed, Even to myself, how bitter the separation; Now, being come again, how make the best Reparation?

If I could cast this clothing off from me, If I could lift my naked self to you, Or if only you would repulse me, a wound would be Good; it would let the ache come through.

But that you hold me still so kindly cold Aloof my flaming heart will not allow; Yea, but I loathe you that you should withhold Your pleasure now.

BLUE

THE earth again like a ship steams out of the dark sea over The edge of the blue, and the sun stands up to see us glide Slowly into another day; slowly the rover Vessel of darkness takes the rising tide.

I, on the deck, am startled by this dawn confronting Me who am issued amazed from the darkness, stripped And quailing here in the sunshine, delivered from haunting The night unsounded whereon our days are shipped.

Feeling myself undawning, the day's light playing upon me, I who am substance of shadow, I all compact Of the stuff of the night, finding myself all wrongly Among the crowds of things in the sunshine jostled and racked.

I with the night on my lips, I sigh with the silence
of death;
And what do I care though the very stones should
cry me unreal, though the clouds
Shine in conceit of substance upon me, who am less
than the rain.
Do I not know the darkness within them? What
are they but shrouds?

The clouds go down the sky with a wealthy ease Casting a shadow of scorn upon me for my share in death; but I Hold my own in the midst of them, darkling, defy The whole of the day to extinguish the shadow I lift on the breeze.

Yea, though the very clouds have vantage over me, Enjoying their glancing flight, though my love is dead, I still am not homeless here, I've a tent by day Of darkness where she sleeps on her perfect bed.

And I know the host, the minute sparkling of darkness Which vibrates untouched and virile through the grandeur of night, But which, when dawn crows challenge, assaulting the vivid motes Of living darkness, bursts fretfully, and is bright:

Runs like a fretted arc-lamp into light,
Stirred by conflict to shining, which else
Were dark and whole with the night.

Runs to a fret of speed like a racing wheel,
Which else were aslumber along with the whole
Of the dark, swinging rhythmic instead of a-reel.

Is chafed to anger, bursts into rage like thunder;
Which else were a silent grasp that held the
heavens
Arrested, beating thick with wonder.

Leaps like a fountain of blue sparks leaping
In a jet from out of obscurity,
Which erst was darkness sleeping.

Runs into streams of bright blue drops,
Water and stones and stars, and myriads
Of twin-blue eyes, and crops

Of floury grain, and all the hosts of day,
All lovely hosts of ripples caused by fretting
The Darkness into play.

SNAP-DRAGON

SHE bade me follow to her garden, where The mellow sunlight stood as in a cup Between the old grey walls; I did not dare To raise my face, I did not dare look up, Lest her bright eyes like sparrows should fly in My windows of discovery, and shrill "Sin."

So with a downcast mien and laughing voice I followed, followed the swing of her white dress That rocked in a lilt along: I watched the poise Of her feet as they flew for a space, then paused to press The grass deep down with the royal burden of her: And gladly I'd offered my breast to the tread of her.

"I like to see," she said, and she crouched her down, She sunk into my sight like a settling bird; And her bosom couched in the confines of her gown Like heavy birds at rest there, softly stirred By her measured breaths: "I like to see," said she, "The snap-dragon put out his tongue at me."

She laughed, she reached her hand out to the flower, Closing its crimson throat. My own throat in her power Strangled, my heart swelled up so full As if it would burst its wine-skin in my throat, Choke me in my own crimson. I watched her pull The gorge of the gaping flower, till the blood did float

Over my eyes, and I was blind--
Her large brown hand stretched over
The windows of my mind;
And there in the dark I did discover
Things I was out to find:
My Grail, a brown bowl twined
With swollen veins that met in the wrist,
Under whose brown the amethyst
I longed to taste. I longed to turn
My heart's red measure in her cup,
I longed to feel my hot blood burn
With the amethyst in her cup.

Then suddenly she looked up,
And I was blind in a tawny-gold day,
Till she took her eyes away.
So she came down from above
And emptied my heart of love.
So I held my heart aloft
To the cuckoo that hung like a dove,
And she settled soft

It seemed that I and the morning world
Were pressed cup-shape to take this reiver
Bird who was weary to have furled
Her wings in us,
As we were weary to receive her.

This bird, this rich,
Sumptuous central grain,
This mutable witch,
This one refrain,
This laugh in the fight,
This clot of night,
This core of delight.

She spoke, and I closed my eyes
To shut hallucinations out.
I echoed with surprise
Hearing my mere lips shout
The answer they did devise.

Again I saw a brown bird hover
Over the flowers at my feet;
I felt a brown bird hover
Over my heart, and sweet
Its shadow lay on my heart.
I thought I saw on the clover
A brown bee pulling apart
The closed flesh of the clover
And burrowing in its heart.

She moved her hand, and again
I felt the brown bird cover
My heart; and then
The bird came down on my heart,
As on a nest the rover
Cuckoo comes, and shoves over
The brim each careful part
Of love, takes possession, and settles her down,
With her wings and her feathers to drown
The nest in a heat of love.

She turned her flushed face to me for the glint Of a moment. "See," she laughed, "if you also Can make them yawn." I put my hand to the dint In the flower's throat, and the flower gaped wide with woe. She watched, she went of a sudden intensely still, She watched my hand, to see what I would fulfil.

I pressed the wretched, throttled flower between My fingers, till its head lay back, its fangs Poised at her. Like a weapon my hand was white and keen, And I held the choked flower-serpent in its pangs Of mordant anguish, till she ceased to laugh, Until her pride's flag, smitten, cleaved down to the staff.

She hid her face, she murmured between her lips The low word "Don't." I let the flower fall, But held my hand afloat towards the slips Of blossom she fingered, and my fingers all Put forth to her: she did not move, nor I, For my hand like a snake watched hers, that could not fly.

Then I laughed in the dark of my heart, I did exult Like a sudden chuckling of music. I bade her eyes Meet mine, I opened her helpless eyes to consult Their fear, their shame, their joy that underlies Defeat in such a battle. In the dark of her eyes My heart was fierce to make her laughter rise.

Till her dark deeps shook with convulsive thrills, and the dark Of her spirit wavered like water thrilled with light; And my heart leaped up in longing to plunge its stark Fervour within the pool of her twilight, Within her spacious soul, to grope in delight.

And I do not care, though the large hands of revenge Shall get my throat at last, shall get it soon, If the joy that they are searching to avenge Have risen red on my night as a harvest moon, Which even death can only put out for me; And death, I know, is better than not-to-be.

A PASSING BELL

MOURNFULLY to and fro, to and fro the trees are
waving;
_What did you say, my dear?_
The rain-bruised leaves are suddenly shaken, as a
child
Asleep still shakes in the clutch of a sob--
_Yes, my love, I hear._

One lonely bell, one only, the storm-tossed afternoon
is braving,
_Why not let it ring?_
The roses lean down when they hear it, the tender,
mild
Flowers of the bleeding-heart fall to the throb--
_It is such a little thing!_

A wet bird walks on the lawn, call to the boy to come
and look,
_Yes, it is over now._
Call to him out of the silence, call him to see
The starling shaking its head as it walks in the
grass--
_Ah, who knows how?_

He cannot see it, I can never show it him, how it
shook--
_Don't disturb him, darling._
--Its head as it walked: I can never call him to me,
Never, he _is_ not, whatever shall come to pass.
_No, look at the wet starling._

IN TROUBLE AND SHAME