The Hours of Fiammetta | Page 4

from poets of old,?Because of delicate imaginations,
Because I am proud, or subtle, or merely cold.?Natheless my soul's bright passions interchange
As the red flames in opal drowse and speak:?In beautiful twilight paths the elusive strange
Phantoms of personality I seek.?If better than the last embraces I
Love the lit riddles of the eyes, the faint?Appeal of merely courteous fingers,--why,
Though 'tis a quest of souls, and I acquaint?My heart with spiritual vanities,--?Is there indeed no bridge twixt me and these?
XIX
THE SEEKER
Curious and wistful through your soul I go.
With silver-tinkling feet I penetrate?Sealed chambers, and a puissant incense throw
Upon the smouldering braziers, love and hate:?And chaunt the grievèd verses of a dirge
For dying gods, remembering flutes and shawms:?With perverse moods I trouble you, and urge
The sense to beauty. Give me some sweet alms,?Some reverie, some pang of a damasked sword,
Some poignant moment yet unparalleled?In my dream-broidered chronicles, some chord
Of mystery Love's music never knelled?Before;--but nought of the rough alchemy?That disillusions all felicity.
XX
THE HIDDEN REVERIE
The life of plants, rising through dim sweet states,
Cloisters the rich love-secret more and more,?Gathers it jealously within the gates
Of the hushed heart; but, mightier than before,?The mystery prevails and overpowers
Stem, leaf, and petal. So the passion lies?In this tranced flowery being which is ours
Like to a hidden wound; yet softly dyes?With dolorous beauty all the stuff of life,
Each dream and vision and desire subduing?With muted pulses, that great counter-strife
Of soul with its own rhythmic pangs imbuing.?Deny it and disdain it. Lo! there beat?Red stigmata in heart and hands and feet.
XXI
SOUL AND BODY
It may be all my pain is woven wrong,
And this wild "I" is nothing but a dream?The body exhales, as roses at evensong
Their passionate odour. Verily it may seem?That this most fevered and fantastic wear
Of nerves and senses is myself indeed,?The rest, illusion taken in that snare.--
But still the fiery splendour and the need?Can bite like actual flame and hunger. Ah!
If Sense, bewildered in the spiral towers?Of Matter, dreamed this great Superbia
I call the Soul, not less the Dream hath powers;?Not less these Twain, being one, are separate,?Like lovers whose love is tangled hard with hate.
XXII
SOUL AND BODY
II
Sometimes the Soul in pure hieratic rule
Is throned (as on some high Abbatial chair?Of moon-pearl and rose-rubies beautiful)
Within the body grown serene and fair:?Sometimes it weds her like a lifted rood;
But she endures, and wills no anodyne,?For then she flowers within the mystic Wood,
And hath her lot with gods--and seems divine:?Sometimes it is her lonely oubliet,
Sometimes a marriage-chamber sweet with spice:?It is her triumph-car with flutes beset,
The altar where she lies a sacrifice.--?Cold images! The truth is not in these.?Both are alive, both quick with rhapsodies.
XXIII
THE JUSTIFICATION
Life I adore, and not Life's accidents.
A garlanded and dream-fast thurifer?My Soul comes out from beauty's purple tents
That incense-troubled Love may grieve and stir,?Be ransomed from satiety's sad graves,
And go to God up the bright stair of Wonder.?Since passion makes immortal Time's tired slaves
I am of those that delicately sunder?Corruptions of contentment from the breast
As with rare steel. Like music I unveil?Last things, till, weary of earthen cups and rest,
You seek Montsalvat and the burning Grail.?Ah! blindly, blindly, wounded with the roses,?I bear my spice where Ecstasy reposes.
XXIV
ASPIRATIONS
Light of great swords, banners all blazoned gold,
Bright lists of danger where with trumpets pass?Riders like those for whom bride-bells are bold
To beautiful desperate conflict, Michaelmas?Of golden heroes, how my sad soul saith
Your praise! Nor does to you her love deny,?Solemn strange Cups that carry dreamy death
To quench those fevers when they flame too high.?But now the Victories have broken wings;
The spirit of Rapture from the day of deeds?Is banished, and must spend on sorcerous strings
Her heart that perishes of splendid needs.--?Saints, lovers, high crusaders, give me too?Some simple and impassioned thing to do.
XXV
THE ANAESTHETIC
Like a white moth caught heavily, heavily,
In the honeyed heart of some white drowsy flower,?I lay behind the leaves of apathy,
Where not the reddest pang has any power.?Then, like one drowning, I rose and lapsed again
On dim sweet tides of the great anodyne.?Why must they hale me back to drink the pain
That seethes in consciousness, an evil wine??I love the closing trances, howsoever
Their seals be broken: they are wise and kind.?If death can give such fumes of poppy, never
Shall I revile him. Oh! uncertain mind!?Hast thou an equal pleasure in the proud?Flame-builded pillar, and the pillar of cloud?
XXVI
DIVINATION
I weary of your hesitating will;
This flicker of "should" and "should not" crazes me.?Rest from these vain debates of good and ill:
Let me your secret swift diviner be.?In the memorial blue dusk of sense,
Where, spirals of doves or wreaths of ravens, rise?Auguries sweet or dread, the blue dusk whence
The cresseted houses of the stars surprise?The heart with their mysterious horoscopes,
I know the issues ere great battles begin,?The ashen values of bright-burning hopes,
The ultimate hours of sacrifice or sin.?Do I obey the Wisdom? If I list,?I too, beloved, can play