Chapter III

I am ashamed, you wanted me not to-night-- Nay, it is always so, you sigh with me. Your radiance dims when I draw too near, and my free Fire enters your petals like death, you wilt dead white.

Ah, I do know, and I am deep ashamed; You love me while I hover tenderly Like clinging sunbeams kissing you: but see When I close in fire upon you, and you are flamed

With the swiftest fire of my love, you are destroyed. 'Tis a degradation deep to me, that my best Soul's whitest lightning which should bright attest God stepping down to earth in one white stride,

Means only to you a clogged, numb burden of flesh Heavy to bear, even heavy to uprear Again from earth, like lilies wilted and sere Flagged on the floor, that before stood up so fresh.

COLDNESS IN LOVE

And you remember, in the afternoon The sea and the sky went grey, as if there had sunk A flocculent dust on the floor of the world: the festoon Of the sky sagged dusty as spider cloth, And coldness clogged the sea, till it ceased to croon.

A dank, sickening scent came up from the grime Of weed that blackened the shore, so that I recoiled Feeling the raw cold dun me: and all the time You leapt about on the slippery rocks, and threw The words that rang with a brassy, shallow chime.

And all day long that raw and ancient cold Deadened me through, till the grey downs darkened to sleep. Then I longed for you with your mantle of love to fold Me over, and drive from out of my body the deep Cold that had sunk to my soul, and there kept hold.

But still to me all evening long you were cold, And I was numb with a bitter, deathly ache; Till old days drew me back into their fold, And dim sheep crowded me warm with companionship, And old ghosts clustered me close, and sleep was cajoled.

I slept till dawn at the window blew in like dust, Like the linty, raw-cold dust disturbed from the floor Of a disused room: a grey pale light like must That settled upon my face and hands till it seemed To flourish there, as pale mould blooms on a crust.

Then I rose in fear, needing you fearfully, For I thought you were warm as a sudden jet of blood. I thought I could plunge in your spurting hotness, and be Clean of the cold and the must.--With my hand on the latch I heard you in your sleep speak strangely to me.

And I dared not enter, feeling suddenly dismayed. So I went and washed my deadened flesh in the sea And came back tingling clean, but worn and frayed With cold, like the shell of the moon: and strange it seems That my love has dawned in rose again, like the love of a maid.

END OF ANOTHER HOME-HOLIDAY