The Hours of Fiammetta | Page 2

to the gods.
For this are we wrought curiously,?All vain-desire and reverie,?To carry spices to the gods.
We carry spices to the gods.
Sacred and soft as lotos-flowers?Are those long languorous hands of ours?That carry spices to the gods.
We know their roses and their rods,
Having in pale spring-orchards seen?Their cruel eyes, and in the green?Strange twilights having met the gods.
Sometimes we tire. Upon the sods
We set the great enamels by,?Wherein the occult odours lie,?And play with children on the sods.
Yet soon we take, O jealous gods,
Those gracious caskets once again,?Storied with oracles of pain,?That keep the spices for the gods.
We carry spices to the gods.
Like sumptuous cold chalcedony?Our weary breasts and hands must be?To carry spices to the gods.
I
THE PRELUDE
Thou sayest, "_O pure Palace of my Pleasures,
O Doors of Ivory, let the King come in.?With silver lamps before him, and with measures
Of low lute-music let him come. Begin,?Ye suppliant lilies and ye frail white roses,
Imploring sweetnesses of hands and eyes,?To let Love through to the most secret closes
Of all his flowery Court of Paradise_." . . .?Sunder the jealous gates. Thine ivory Castle
Is hung with scarlet, is the Convent of Pain.?With purple and with spice indeed the Vassal
Receives her King whom dark desires constrain.?Rejoice, rejoice!--But far from flutes and dances?The cloistered Soul lies frozen in her trances.
II
PERILS
Ah! Since from subtle silk of agony
Our veils of lamentable flesh are spun,?Since Time in spoiling violates, and we
In that strait Pass of Pangs may be undone,?Since the mere natural flower and withering
Of these our bodies terribly distil?Strange poisons, since an alien Lust may fling
On any autumn day some torch to fill?Our pale Pavilion of dreaming lavenders
With frenzy, till it is a Tower of Flame?Wherein the soul shrieks burning, since the myrrhs
And music of our beauty are mixed with shame?Inextricable,--some drug of poppies give?This bitter ecstasy whereby we live!
III
THE PEACE TO BE
Quell this consuming fever, quickly give
Some drug of poppies white!--But Peace will come??O ashen savourless alternative,
Quietude of the blind and deaf and dumb?That all swift motions must alike assuage,--
When we are exiled from youth's golden hosts?To pace the calm cold terraces of age,
With unvexed senses, being but houseled ghosts,?Wise, with the uncoloured wisdom of the souls
With whom great passions have no more to do,?Serene, since ours the dusty arles Death doles,
Oblivions dim of all there is to rue!--?Peace comes to hearts of whom proud Love has tired;?Beyond all danger dwell the undesired.
IV
STATUES
The great Greek lovers of gold and ivory things,
Austere and perfect things, albeit they wrought?Girl-shapes with driven raiment, conquering wings,
And smiling queens of Cnidos, turned and sought?A more inviolate beauty that should keep
Their secret dream. Their grave sweet geniuses?Of love and death, of rapture or of sleep,
Are delicately severed from all excess.--?Ah! suppliant, honey-white, the languor cleaves
About the dolorous weak body He,?The Dark Eros, with staunchless spear-thrust grieves;
Heavy the seal of that mortality.?No wounds disgrace the haughty acolytes?Of heavenly sorrows, of divine delights.
V
THE WEDDING-GARMENT
Thought it be blither than roses in thine eyes,
Shall I not rend this raiment of pangs and fears,?This Colchian cloth white flames ensorcelise,
This gaudy-veil distained with blood and tears?--?What praise? "_O marriage-beauty garlanded
For festival, O sumptuous flowery stole?For rites of adoration!_"--See instead
A cilice drenched with torment of my soul!?Nevertheless the fibres implicate
Proud exultations; burning, have revealed?Rich throes of triumph, sweetness passionate
As painèd lilies reared in thorn-plots yield.?Ah! silver wedding-garment of the bride,?Ah! fiery cilice, I am satisfied!
VI
THE DEATH OF PROCRIS
Come gaze on Procris, poor soon-perished child!
Why did her innocent virginity?Follow Desire within his arrowy wild?
She dies pursuing the cruel ecstasy?That keeps as mortal wounds for them that find.
Serene her pensive body lies at last?Like a mown poppy-flower to sleep resigned,
Softly resigned. The wildwood things aghast,?With pitiful hearts instinctive, sweet as hers,
Approach her now: love, death, and virgin grace,?Blue distance, and the stricken foresters,
And all the dreaming, healing, woodland place?Are patterned into tender melodies?Of lovely line and hue--a music of peace!
VII
THE WARNING
As delicate gorgeous rains of dusky gold
Heavy white lilies, Love importunate?Besets the soul,--as that wild Splendour told
Pale Dana? her haughty heavenly fate.?Not speared in burning points but spun in strands
My senses: drowsily burning webs are they?That veil me head to foot. While on mine hands
And hair and lids thy kisses die away?Through all my being their strange echoes thrill
And from the body's flowery mysticism?I draw the last white honey. What is thine ill?
What wouldst thou more of that great symbolism??Beyond this ultimate moment nothing lies?But moonless cold and darkness. Ah! be wise!
VIII
THE ACCUSATION
Mere night! The unconsenting Soul stands by,
A moaning protestant. "Ah, not for this,?And not for this, through rose and thorn was I
Drawn to surrender and the bridal-kiss.?Annunciations lit with jewelled wings
Of sudden angels mid the lilies tall,?Proud prothalamia chaunting enraptured things,--
O sumptuous fables, why so prodigal?Of masque and music, of dreams like foam-white swans
On lakes of hyacinthus? Must Love seek?Great allies, Beauty sound her arrière-bans
That all her splendours betray us