The Heptalogia | Page 2

daytime (guess),?You that feed my soul?To excess?With that light in those eyes?And those curls drawn like a scroll?In that round grave guise?
No or yes?
II
Oh, the end, I'd say!?Such a foolish thing?(Pure girls' play!)?As a mere mute heart,?Was it worth a kiss, a ring,?This? for two must part--
Not to-day.
III
Look, the whole sand crawls,?Hums, a heaving hive,?Scrapes and scrawls--?Such a buzz and burst!?Here just one thing's not alive,?One that was at first--
But life palls.
IV
Yes, my heart, I know,?Just my heart's stone dead--?Yes, just so.?Sick with heat, those worms?Drop down scorched and overfed--?No more need of germs!
Let them go.
V
Yes, but you now, look,?You, the rouged stage female?With a crook,?Chalked Arcadian sham,?You that made my soul's sleep's dream ail--?Your soul fit to damn?
Shut the book.
III
ON THE SANDS
I
There was nothing at all in the case (conceive)?But love; being love, it was not (understand)?Such a thing as the years let fall (believe)?Like the rope's coil dropt from a fisherman's hand?When the boat's hauled up--"by your leave!"
II
So--well! How that crab writhes--leg after leg?Drawn, as a worm draws ring upon ring?Gradually, not gladly! Chicken or egg,?Is it more than the ransom (say) of a king?(Take my meaning at least) that I beg?
III
Not so! You were ready to learn, I think,?What the world said! "He loves you too well (suppose)?For such leanings! These poets, their love's mere ink--?Like a flower, their flame flashes--a rosebud, blows--?Then it all drops down at a wink!
IV
"Ah, the instance! A curl of a blossomless vine?The vinedresser passing it sickens to see?And mutters 'Much hope (under God) of His wine?From the branch and the bark of a barren tree?Spring reared not, and winter lets pine--
V
"'His wine that should glorify (saith He) the cup?That a man beholding (not tasting) might say?"Pour out life at a draught, drain it dry, drink it up,?Give this one thing, and huddle the rest away--?Save the bitch, and be hanged to the pup!"
VI
"'Let it rot then!' which saying, he leaves it--we'll guess, Feels (if the sap move at all) thus much--?Yearns, and would blossom, would quicken no less,?Bud at an eye's glance, flower at a touch--?'Die, perhaps, would you not, for her?'--'Yes!'
VII
"Note the hitch there! That's piteous--so much being done,?(He'll think some day, your lover) so little to do!?Such infinite days to wear out, once begun!?Since the hand its glove holds, and the footsole its shoe-- Overhead too there's always the sun!"
VIII
Oh, no doubt they had said so, your friends--been profuse?Of good counsel, wise hints--"where the trap lurks, walk warily-- Squeeze the fruit to the core ere you count on the juice!?For the graft may fail, shift, wax, change colour, wane, vary, lie--" You were cautious, God knows--to what use?
IX
This crab's wiser, it strikes me--no twist but implies life-- Not a curl but's so fit you could find none fitter--?For the brute from its brutehood looks up thus and eyes life-- Stoop your soul down and listen, you'll hear it twitter,?Laughing lightly,--my crab's life's the wise life!
X
Those who've read S. T. Coleridge remember how Sammy sighs?To his pensive (I think he says) Sara--"most soothing-sweet"-- Crab's bulk's less (look!) than man's--yet (quoth Cancer) I am my size, And my bulk's girth contents me! Man's maw (see?) craves two things-- wheat?And flesh likewise--man's gluttonous--damn his eyes!
XI
Crab's content with crab's provender: crab's love, if soothing, Is no sweeter than pincers are soft--and a new sickle?Cuts no sharper than crab's claws nip, keen as boar's toothing! Yet crab's love's no less fervent than bard's, if less musical-- 'Tis a new thing I'd lilt--but a true thing.
XII
Old songs tell us, of all drinks for Englishmen fighting, ale's Out and out best: salt water contents crab, it seems to me, Though pugnacious as sailors, and skilled to steer right in gales That craze pilots, if slow to sing--"Sleep'st thou? thou dream'st o' me!"?In such love-strains as mine--or a nightingale's.
XIII
Ah, now, look you--tail foremost, the beast sets seaward--?The sea draws it, sand sucks it--he's wise, my crab!?From the napkin out jumps his one talent--good steward,?Just judge! So a man shirks the smile or the stab,?And sets his sail duly to leeward!
XIV
Trust me? Hardly! I bid you not lean (remark)?On my spirit, your spirit--my flesh, your flesh--?Hold my hand, and tread safe through the horrible dark--?Quench my soul as with sprinklings of snow, then refresh?With some blast of new bellows the spark!
XV
By no means! This were easy (men tell me) to say--?"Give her all, throw your chance up, fall back on her heart!" (Say my friends) "she must change! after night follows day--" No such fool! I am safe set in hell, for my part--?So let heaven do the worst now he may!
XVI
What they bid me? Well, this, nothing more--"Tell her this-- 'You are mine, I yours, though the whole world fail--?Though things are not, I know there is one thing which is-- Though the oars break, there's hope