Look! We Have Come Through! | Page 6

was apple-green,?The sky was green wine held up in the sun,?The moon was a golden petal between.
She opened her eyes, and green?They shone, clear like flowers undone?For the first time, now for the first time seen.
ICKING
_RIVER ROSES_
BY the Isar, in the twilight?We were wandering and singing,?By the Isar, in the evening?We climbed the huntsman's ladder and sat
swinging?In the fir-tree overlooking the marshes,?While river met with river, and the ringing?Of their pale-green glacier water filled the evening.
By the Isar, in the twilight?We found the dark wild roses?Hanging red at the river; and simmering?Frogs were singing, and over the river closes?Was savour of ice and of roses; and glimmering?Fear was abroad. We whispered: "No one
knows us.?Let it be as the snake disposes?Here in this simmering marsh."
KLOSTER SCHAEFTLARN
_GLOIRE DE DIJON_
WHEN she rises in the morning?I linger to watch her;?She spreads the bath-cloth underneath the window?And the sunbeams catch her?Glistening white on the shoulders,?While down her sides the mellow?Golden shadow glows as?She stoops to the sponge, and her swung breasts?Sway like full-blown yellow?Gloire de Dijon roses.
She drips herself with water, and her shoulders?Glisten as silver, they crumple up?Like wet and falling roses, and I listen?For the sluicing of their rain-dishevelled petals.?In the window full of sunlight?Concentrates her golden shadow?Fold on fold, until it glows as?Mellow as the glory roses.
ICKING
_ROSES ON THE BREAKFAST?TABLE_
JUST a few of the roses we gathered from the Isar?Are fallen, and their mauve-red petals on the
cloth?Float like boats on a river, while other?Roses are ready to fall, reluctant and loth.
She laughs at me across the table, saying?I am beautiful. I look at the rumpled young roses?And suddenly realise, in them as in me,?How lovely the present is that this day discloses.
_I AM LIKE A ROSE_
I AM myself at last; now I achieve?My very self. I, with the wonder mellow,?Full of fine warmth, I issue forth in clear?And single me, perfected from my fellow.
Here I am all myself. No rose-bush heaving?Its limpid sap to culmination, has brought?Itself more sheer and naked out of the green?In stark-clear roses, than I to myself am brought.
_ROSE OF ALL THE WORLD_
I AM here myself; as though this heave of effort?At starting other life, fulfilled my own:?Rose-leaves that whirl in colour round a core?Of seed-specks kindled lately and softly blown
By all the blood of the rose-bush into being--?Strange, that the urgent will in me, to set?My mouth on hers in kisses, and so softly?To bring together two strange sparks, beget
Another life from our lives, so should send?The innermost fire of my own dim soul outspinning
And whirling in blossom of flame and being upon
me!?That my completion of manhood should be the
beginning
Another life from mine! For so it looks.?The seed is purpose, blossom accident.?The seed is all in all, the blossom lent?To crown the triumph of this new descent.
Is that it, woman? Does it strike you so??The Great Breath blowing a tiny seed of fire?Fans out your petals for excess of flame,?Till all your being smokes with fine desire?
Or are we kindled, you and I, to be?One rose of wonderment upon the tree?Of perfect life, and is our possible seed?But the residuum of the ecstasy?
How will you have it?--the rose is all in all,?Or the ripe rose-fruits of the luscious fall??The sharp begetting, or the child begot??Our consummation matters, or does it not?
To me it seems the seed is just left over?From the red rose-flowers' fiery transience;?Just orts and slarts; berries that smoulder in the
bush?Which burnt just now with marvellous immanence.
Blossom, my darling, blossom, be a rose?Of roses unchidden and purposeless; a rose?For rosiness only, without an ulterior motive;?For me it is more than enough if the flower unclose.
_A YOUTH MOWING_
THERE are four men mowing down by the Isar;?I can hear the swish of the scythe-strokes, four?Sharp breaths taken: yea, and I?Am sorry for what's in store.
The first man out of the four that's mowing?Is mine, I claim him once and for all;?Though it's sorry I am, on his young feet, knowing?None of the trouble he's led to stall.
As he sees me bringing the dinner, he lifts?His head as proud as a deer that looks?Shoulder-deep out of the corn; and wipes?His scythe-blade bright, unhooks
The scythe-stone and over the stubble to me.?Lad, thou hast gotten a child in me,?Laddie, a man thou'lt ha'e to be,?Yea, though I'm sorry for thee.
_QUITE FORSAKEN_
WHAT pain, to wake and miss you!?To wake with a tightened heart,?And mouth reaching forward to kiss you!
This then at last is the dawn, and the bell?Clanging at the farm! Such bewilderment?Comes with the sight of the room, I cannot tell.
It is raining. Down the half-obscure road?Four labourers pass with their scythes?Dejectedly;--a huntsman goes by with his load:
A gun, and a bunched-up deer, its four little feet?Clustered dead.--And this is the dawn?For which I wanted the night to retreat!
_FORSAKEN AND FORLORN_
THE house is silent, it is late at night, I