A Woman of Thirty | Page 5

the brine?Drowning the secret timbers of my heart.
Possession
I hold you fast, your hurrying breath,?Your wandering feet, your restless heart,?Are mine alone, for only death?You vowed today, can make us part.
Your eager lips, athirst to drain?Life's goblet of its golden wine?Shall drink tonight or thirst in vain--?I hold you fast for you are mine.
And when I search your soul until?I see too deeply and divine?That you can never love me--Still?I hold you fast for you are mine!
Evening: the Taj Mahal?(A Lover Speaks)
Beloved!...
India and you?Breathe through my soul tonight,?You in your gown, impossibly white--?I marvel greatly that it fail?To glow and pale?With iridescent light--?How can it hang in silent nun-like folds??Think of the flaming mystery it holds,?You... You...
We stand in that wide place?Where love is frozen in marble, spire on spire,?A snow-white nightingale with a heart of fire?Soaring in space.?We gaze, together, into the shining pool?To catch the soul of beauty unaware?Finding only the peaceful body there?Of beauty drowned and still in waters cool.
Burning so luminously in these pure white things?Somehow akin, are palpitating fires,
Intangible, yet visible as spires?Or wings.?And close at hand, an unseen Moslem sings?Blind, haunting chants, which speak?Of mystery, forevermore unguessed.?O shining ones, I seek?No farther, for my soul, content,?Divines the secret of the Taj Mahal and you--?Beauty and desire, possessed?In white tranquillity, in flaming peace,?Find rest.
The Gift
What is this wine you have poured for me?
You have offered up?Your face in its pure transparency
Like a crystal cup?Which trembling fingers slowly lift--
It is faintly masked?With a tremulous smile. You have brought me a gift,
Your love, unasked.
Could you trust my reckless hands so much?
With no vow spoken,?You gave me a goblet, which at a touch
Were utterly broken!?Your smile replied: "Since the glass was filled
It little mattered?Whether the wine were drunk or spilled
Or the goblet shattered."
The Bridge
I walk the bridge of hours from dawn till night?My heart beating so loud in joyous wonder?To know your love, that I can scarcely breathe;?But in the lonely darkness, with affright?I faintly hear, like ominous, distant thunder?The unseen ocean surging close beneath.
Our bridge so frail, eternity so vast!?When we must sink into the deep at last?Heart of my heart, will you still hold me fast?
A Temple
I. DOORWAY
Carven angels?On the portals,?Angels with crowns, and eagles?And golden lions?On the door.
This is why?The alien worshippers went their way,?Why you alone discovered?The gates were open.
You touched the velvet curtains behind them,?They parted to let you pass.
II. WINDOW
I make a window?Of you, beloved,?Through which the sun colours?The silence.
Even your absences?Are spaces I have filled?With sapphire;
Your denials?Are burning gold,?I have painted your reluctance?Emerald green:
Your silences?Are crimson?On which your words make delicate?Black tracery.
As for me,?My will is the grey lead?Which I have bent to hold the coloured?Panes of you.
III. SPIRE
My wish goes singing upward?Holding a chime of bells?In its heart:
Pigeons know my silent bells,?Winds touch them and wonder.
That they might reach?That high blue--
Till star fingers touch them?Ever so gently--
And drifting clouds?Lay cool cheeks against them--
My wish goes singing upward?Reaching into silence.
IV. PRIEDIEU
Beauty passes?But dust is eternal.?Outside the temple?Beauty dies in the wind.
So when my temple is fallen?And lies in dust,?Where then will be the memory?Of your beauty?
I pray my dust?That it may hold your image?Tomorrow and for ever.
V. FESTIVAL
The beloved is returning,?Let the bells ring!
I too am a tower?Hung with bronze bells,
I too am a bell?Chiming to the winds,
I too am the wind?Ringing to the hills,
I too am the hills?Singing to the sky.
I too am the sky!?The beloved is returning,?Let the bells ring!
VI. DUSK
There is no soul too poor to build a temple?Where it may go apart?And worship darkness.
For out of darkness?Images shine... and fade...
Since now there is no worship nor any music,?Let incense be a curved smile?On lips that remember,?And candles, notes of laughter?In empty dusk.
Above,?A coloured window slowly turns?Black to the night.
VII. RUINS
Temples have fallen?Before today,?Stones are ever loosening their hold?One on another...
You blocks of marble, sleeping in the sun,?Can you remember chiming bells?And incense?
Now there is only silence,?Even the winged stones of archways?Sleep in peace.
Candles
Silence is but the golden frame
That holds your face,?My thoughts, like unblown candle-flame
In a holy place?Surround you. From this secret shrine
Somewhere apart?Do you not feel my candles shine
Upon your heart?
Winter Night
The I that does not love you?I have kept hidden away?In the dark.
(I never dreamed?There was a You?That does not love me!)
Tonight they met.
I hear their words?Falling like icicles?Upon me...?I am frozen in terror...?Have they killed the You?That Loves me?
Beloved, can you hear me?Through the bitter sound?Of icicles falling??Can you see me from behind?Your frozen eyes?
Last Days
I
Shall I pretend?These days are just like other days??One cannot spend?Every day for seven weeks?Saying good-bye.
So when I must?I speak of your departure casually?As though it were a hundred years away;?As Youth is wont to say:?"Sometime we all must die!"
II
We talk of all the happy things we have done,?We pass them in review,?"Do you remember?" is often on our lips.
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