The Heptalogia | Page 3

for us yet--hoist the sail! Oh, your heart! what's the heart? but your kiss!'
XVII
"Then she breaks, she drops down, she lies flat at your feet-- Take her then!" Well, I knew it--what fools are men!?Take the bee by her horns, will your honey prove sweet??Sweet is grass--will you pasture your cows in a fen??Oh, if contraries could but once meet!
XVIII
Love you call it? Some twitch in the moon's face (observe), Wet blink of her eyelid, tear dropt about dewfall,?Cheek flushed or obscured--does it make the sky swerve??Fetch the test, work the question to rags, bring to proof all-- Find what souls want and bodies deserve!
XIX
Ah, we know you! Your soul works to infinite ends,?Frets, uses life up for death's sake, takes pains,?Flings down love's self--"but you, bear me witness, my friends! Have I lost spring? count up (see) the winter's fresh gains! Is the shrub spoilt? the pine's hair impends!"
XX
What, you'd say--"Mark how God works! Years crowd, time wears thin, Earth keeps good yet, the sun goes on, stars hold their own, And you'll change, climb past sight of the world, shift your skin, Never heeding how life moans--'more flesh now, less bone!' For that cheek's worn waste outline (death's grin)
XXI
"Pleads with time still--'what good if I lose this? but see--'" (There's the crab gone!) "'I said, "Though earth sinks,"'" (you perceive? Ah, true, back there!) your soul now--"'"yet some vein might be (Could one find it alive in the heart's core's pulse, cleave Through the life-springs where "you" melts in "me")--
XXII
"'"Some true vein of the absolute soul, which survives?All that flesh runs to waste through"--and lo, this fails! Here's death close on us! One life? a million of lives!?Why choose one sail to watch of these infinite sails??Time's a tennis-play? thank you, no, fives!
XXIII
"'Stop life's ball then!' Such folly! melt earth down for that, Till the pure ore eludes you and leaves you raw scori???Pish, the vein's wrong!" But you, friends--come, what were you at When God spat you out suddenly? what was the story He?Cut short thus, the growth He laid flat?
XXIV
Wait! the crab's twice alive, mark! Oh, worthy, your soul,?Of strange ends, great results, novel labours! Take note, I reject this for one! (ay, now, straight to the hole!?Safe in sand there--your skirts smooth out all as they float!) I, shirk drinking through flaws in the bowl?
XXV
Or suppose now that rock's cleft--grim, scored to the quick, As a man's face kept fighting all life through gets scored, Mossed and marked with grey purulent leprosies, sick,?Flat and foul as man's life here (be swift with your sword-- Cut the soul out, stuck fast where thorns prick!)
XXVI
--Say it let the rock's heart out, its meaning, the thing?All was made for, devised, ruled out gradually, planned-- Ah, that sea-shell, perhaps--since it lies, such a ring?Of pure colour, a cup full of sunbeams, to stand?(Say, in Lent) at the priest's hand--(no king!)
XXVII
Blame the cleft then? Praise rather! So--just a chance gone! Had you said--"Save the seed and secure souls in flower"-- Ah, how time laughs, years palpitate, pro grapples con,?Till one day you shrug shoulders--"Well, gone, the good hour!" Till one night--"Is God off now? or on?"
IV
UP THE SPOUT
I
Hi! Just you drop that! Stop, I say!?Shirk work, think slink off, twist friend's wrist??Where that spined sand's lined band's the bay--?Lined blind with true sea's blue, as due--?Promising--not to pay?
II
For the sea's debt leaves wet the sand;?Burst worst fate's weights in one burst gun??A man's own yacht, blown--What? off land??Tack back, or veer round here, then--queer!?Reef points, though--understand?
III
I'm blest if I do. Sigh? be blowed!?Love's doves make break life's ropes, eh? Tropes!?Faith's brig, baulked, sides caulked, rides at road;?Hope's gropes befogged, storm-dogged and bogged--?Clogged, water-logged, her load!
IV
Stowed, by Jove, right and tight, away!?No show now how best plough sea's brow,?Wrinkling--breeze quick, tease thick, ere day,?Clear sheer wave's sheen of green, I mean,?With twinkling wrinkles--eh?
V
Sea sprinkles winkles, tinkles light?Shells' bells--boy's joys that hap to snap!?It's just sea's fun, breeze done, to spite?God's rods that scourge her surge, I'd urge--?Not proper, is it--quite?
VI
See, fore and aft, life's craft undone!?Crank plank, split spritsail--mark, sea's lark!?That grey cold sea's old sprees, begun?When men lay dark i' the ark, no spark,?All water--just God's fun!
VII
Not bright, at best, his jest to these?Seemed--screamed, shrieked, wreaked on kin for sin!?When for mirth's yell earth's knell seemed please?Some dumb new grim great whim in him?Made Jews take chalk for cheese.
VIII
Could God's rods bruise God's Jews? Their jowls?Bobbed, sobbed, gaped, aped the plaice in face:?None heard, 'tis odds, his--God's--folk's howls.?Now, how must I apply, to try?This hookiest-beaked of owls?
IX
Well, I suppose God knows--I don't.?Time's crimes mark dark men's types, in stripes?Broad as fen's lands men's hands were wont?Leave grieve unploughed, though proud and loud?With birds' words--No! he won't!
X
One never should think good impossible.?Eh? say I'd hide this Jew's oil's cruse--?His shop might