New Poems | Page 8

bows his head and grants me this supreme?Pure look of your last dead face, whence now is gone?The mobility, the panther's gambolling,?And all your being is given to me, so none
Can mock my struggling."
"And now at last I kiss your perfect face,?Perfecting now our unfinished, first embrace.?Your young hushed look that then saw God ablaze?In every bush, is given you back, and we?Are met at length to finish our rest of days
In a unity."
HEIMWEH
FAR-OFF the lily-statues stand white-ranked in the
garden at home.?Would God they were shattered quickly, the cattle
would tread them out in the loam.?I wish the elder trees in flower could suddenly heave,
and burst?The walls of the house, and nettles puff out from
the hearth at which I was nursed.
It stands so still in the hush composed of trees and
inviolate peace,?The home of my fathers, the place that is mine, my
fate and my old increase.?And now that the skies are falling, the world is
spouting in fountains of dirt,?I would give my soul for the homestead to fall with
me, go with me, both in one hurt.
DEBACLE
THE trees in trouble because of autumn,?And scarlet berries falling from the bush,?And all the myriad houseless seeds?Loosing hold in the wind's insistent push
Moan softly with autumnal parturition,?Poor, obscure fruits extruded out of light?Into the world of shadow, carried down?Between the bitter knees of the after-night.
Bushed in an uncouth ardour, coiled at core?With a knot of life that only bliss can unravel,?Fall all the fruits most bitterly into earth?Bitterly into corrosion bitterly travel.
What is it internecine that is locked,?By very fierceness into a quiescence?Within the rage? We shall not know till it burst?Out of corrosion into new florescence.
Nay, but how tortured is the frightful seed?The spark intense within it, all without?Mordant corrosion gnashing and champing hard?For ruin on the naked small redoubt.
Bitter, to fold the issue, and make no sally;?To have the mystery, but not go forth;?To bear, but retaliate nothing, given to save?The spark in storms of corrosion, as seeds from
the north.
The sharper, more horrid the pressure, the harder
the heart?That saves the blue grain of eternal fire?Within its quick, committed to hold and wait?And suffer unheeding, only forbidden to expire.
NARCISSUS
WHERE the minnows trace?A glinting web quick hid in the gloom of the brook,?When I think of the place?And remember the small lad lying intent to look?Through the shadowy face?At the little fish thread-threading the watery nook--
It seems to me?The woman you are should be nixie, there is a pool?Where we ought to be.?You undine-clear and pearly, soullessly cool?And waterly?The pool for my limbs to fathom, my soul's last
school.
Narcissus?Ventured so long ago in the deeps of reflection.?Illyssus?Broke the bounds and beyond!--Dim recollection?Of fishes?Soundlessly moving in heaven's other direction!
Be?Undine towards the waters, moving back;?For me?A pool! Put off the soul you've got, oh lack?Your human self immortal; take the watery track.
AUTUMN SUNSHINE
THE sun sets out the autumn crocuses?And fills them up a pouring measure?Of death-producing wine, till treasure?Runs waste down their chalices.
All, all Persephone's pale cups of mould?Are on the board, are over-filled;?The portion to the gods is spilled;?Now, mortals all, take hold!
The time is now, the wine-cup full and full?Of lambent heaven, a pledging-cup;?Let now all mortal men take up?The drink, and a long, strong pull.
Out of the hell-queen's cup, the heaven's pale wine--?Drink then, invisible heroes, drink.?Lips to the vessels, never shrink,?Throats to the heavens incline.
And take within the wine the god's great oath?By heaven and earth and hellish stream?To break this sick and nauseous dream?We writhe and lust in, both.
Swear, in the pale wine poured from the cups of the
queen?Of hell, to wake and be free?From this nightmare we writhe in,?Break out of this foul has-been.
ON THAT DAY
ON that day?I shall put roses on roses, and cover your grave?With multitude of white roses: and since you were
brave?One bright red ray.
So people, passing under?The ash-trees of the valley-road, will raise?Their eyes and look at the grave on the hill, in
wonder,?Wondering mount, and put the flowers asunder
To see whose praise?Is blazoned here so white and so bloodily red.?Then they will say: "'Tis long since she is dead,
Who has remembered her after many days?"
And standing there?They will consider how you went your ways?Unnoticed among them, a still queen lost in the
maze?Of this earthly affair.
A queen, they'll say,?Has slept unnoticed on a forgotten hill.?Sleeps on unknown, unnoticed there, until
Dawns my insurgent day.
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