Silverpoints | Page 5

think a single thought, nor say?A word; but in my soul the mists upcurl?Of infinite love. I will go far away?With nature, happily, as with a girl.
�� UNE MADONE. IMITATED FROM THE FRENCH?OF CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
Madone! my lady, I will build for thee?A grotto altar of my misery.?Deep will I scoop, where darkest lies my heart,?Far from the world's cupidity apart,
A niche, with mercy stained, and streaked with gold,?Where none thy statue's wonder may behold.
Then, for thy head, I will fashion a tiar,?A filigree of verse, with many a star
Of crystal rhyme its heavy folds upon.?And jealousy, O mortal! my Madone,
Shall cut for thee a gown, of dreadful guise,?Which like a portcullis, shall veil thy thighs;
Rude, heavy curtain, faced with bitter fears,?Broidered, in place of pearls, with all my tears.
And, of my worship, shoes will I design;?Two satin shoes, to case thy feet divine,
Which, while their precious freight they softly hold,?Shall guard the imprint in a faithful mould.
If I should fail to forge a silver moon,?I with my art, for thee to tread upon,
Then will I place the writhing beast that hangs?Upon my heart, and tears it with his fangs,
Where thou may'st crush his head, and smile supreme,?O majesty! all potent to redeem.
And all my thoughts, like candles, shalt thou see?before thine altar spread, Star of the Sea!
Starring thine azure roof with points of fire.?With nought hut thee to cherish and admire,
So shall my soul in plaintive fumes arise?Of incense ever to thy pitying eyes.
Last, that indeed a Mary thou may'st be,?And that my love be mixed with cruelty--
O foul voluptuousness! when I have made?Of every deadly sin a deadlier blade,
Torturer filled with pain will I draw near?The target of thy breast, and, sick with fear,
Deliberately plant them all where throbs?Thy bleeding heart, and stifling with its sobs.
FEMMES DAMN��ES
Like moody beasts they lie along the sands;,?Look where the sky against the sea-rim clings:?Foot stretches out to foot, and groping hands?Have languors soft and bitter shudderings.
Some, smitten hearts with the long secrecies,?On velvet moss, deep in their bowers' ease,?Prattling the love of timid infancies,?Are tearing the green bark from the young trees.
Others, like sisters, slowly walk and grave;?By rocks that swarm with ghostly legions,?Where Anthony saw surging on the waves?The purple breasts of his temptations,
Some, by the light of crumbling, resinous gums,?In the still hollows of old pagan dens,?Call thee in aid to their deliriums?O Bacchus! cajoler of ancient pains.
And those whose breasts for scapulars are fain?Nurse under their long robes the cruel thong.?These, in dim woods, where huddling shadows throng.?Mix with the foam of pleasure tears of pain.
LE VOYAGE �� CYTH��RE
Bird-like, my heart was glad to soar and vault;?Fluttering among the cordages; and on?The vessel flew, under an empty vault:?An angel drunken of a radiant sun.
Tell me, what is that gray, that sombre isle??'Tis Cythera, famed on many a poet string;?A name that has not lacked the slavering smile;?But now, you see, it is not much to sing.
Isle of soft whispers, tremours of the heart!?The splendid phantom of thy rude goddess?Floats on thy seas like breath of spikenard,?Charging men's souls with love and lusciousness.
Sweet isle of myrtles, once of open blooms:?Now only of lean lands most lean: it seems?A flinty desert bitter with shrill screams:?But one strange object on its horror looms.
Not a fair temple, foiled with coppiced trees,?Where the young priestess, mistress of the flowers,?Goes opening her gown to the cool breeze,?To still the fire, the torment that devours.
But as along the shore we skirted, near?Enough to scare the birds with our white sails,?We saw a three-limbed gibbet rising sheer.?Detached against the sky in spare details.
Perched on their pasturage, ferocious fowl?Riddled with rage a more than putrid roast;?Each of them stabbing, like a tool, his foul?Beak in the oozing members of his host.
Below, a troop of jealous quadrupeds,?Looking aloft with eye and steadfast snout;?A larger beast above the others' heads,?A hangman with his porters round about.
The eyes, two caves; and from the rotten paunch,?Its freight, too heavy, streamed along the haunch,?Hang for these harpies' hideous delight,?Poor rag of flesh, torn of thy sex and sight!
Cythera's child, child of so sweet a sky!?Silent thou bearest insult--as we must--?In expiation of what faults deny?Thee even a shallow shelter in the dust.
Ludicrous sufferer! thy woes are mine.?There came, at seeing of thy dangling limbs,?Up to my lips, like vomiting, the streams?Of ancient miseries, of gall and brine.
Before thee, brother in my memory fresh!?I felt the mangling of the appetites?Of the black panthers, of the savage kites,?That were so fain to rend and pick my flesh.
The sea was sleeping. Blue and beautiful?The sky. Henceforth I saw but murk and blood,?Alas! and as it had been in a shroud,?My heart lay buried in that parable,
All thine isle showed me, Venus! was upthrust,?A symbol calvary where my image hung.?Give me, Lord God, to look upon that