The Hours of Fiammetta | Page 5

the casuist.
XXVII
SUB-CONSCIOUSNESS
Sometimes as Martha suddenly stood amazed
By Mary's mystic eyes, and sometimes as?That very dreamer Mary might have gazed
Upon the Daughter of Herodias,?The conscious Soul that other Soul discovers,
The strange idolator who still regrets?Golden Osiris, Tammuz lord of lovers,
Attis the sad white god of violets.?In jasper caves she lies behind her veils;
And jars of spice, and gilded ears of corn,?And wine-red roses and rose-red wine-grails
Feed her long trances while the far flutes mourn.?She lies and dreams daemonic passionate things:?Cherubim guard her gates with monstrous wings.
XXVIII
SATIETY
Ah! love me not with honey-sweet excesses,
With passionate prodigalities of praise,?With wreaths of daisied words and quaint caresses,
Adore me not in charming childish ways.?This pastoral is beautiful enough:
But never shall it antidote my drouth:?I want a reticent ironic Love
With smiling eyes and faintly mocking mouth.?Sweetness is best when bitterly 'tis bought:
So in Love's deadly duel I would not be?Victorious, and the peace I long have sought,
Sure knowledge of his great supremacy,?Would buy with pangs, like that bright cuirassier,?The queen-at-arms that knew the Peliad's spear.
XXIX
THE CONFESSION
I
I am initiate,--long disciplined
In delicate austerities of art:?The clear compulsions of the sovran mind
Constrain the dreamy panics of my heart.?Plato and Dante, Petrarch, Lancelot,
Revealed me very Love, flame-clad, august.?Also I strove to be as we are not,
Loyal, and honourable, and even just.?My webs of life in reveries were dyed
As veils in vats of purple: so there stole?Serene and sumptuous and mysterious pride
Through the imperial vesture of my soul.--?And lo! like any servile fool I crave?The dark strange rapture of the stricken slave.
XXX
THE CONFESSION
II
I have a banner and a great duke's way,
I have an High Adventure of my own.?Yet would I rather squire a knightlier,--Nay!
Be the least harper by his red-hung throne.?I am not satisfied with any love
Till I can say, "O stronger far than I!"?Is it a shame to hide the aching of,
A sacred mystery to justify??Through all our spiritual discontents
Thrills the strange leaven of renunciation.--?Ah! god unknown behind the Sacraments
Unfailing of the earthly expiation,?Lift up this amethyst-encumbered Vine,?Crush from her pain some ransom-cup of Wine.
XXXI
COMRADES
Yet for the honourable felicity
Of comradeship I can be chivalrous,?And through love's transmutations fierily
Constant as the gemmed paladin Sirius?To that fair pact. We go, gay challengers,
Beneath dark rampires of forbidden thought,?Thread life's dim gardens masked like revellers
Where dreams of roses red are dearly bought.?We shall ride haughtily as bright Crusaders,
As hooded palmers fare with humbled hearts,?And we shall find, adoring blithe invaders,
The City of Seven Towers, of Seven Arts.--?Then the Last Quest, (lead you the dreadful way!)?Among the unimagined Nebulae!
XXXII
THE SUM OF THINGS
TO ANOTHER WOMAN
Well, I am tired, who fared to divers ends,
And you are not, who kept the beaten path;?But mystic Vintagers have been my friends,
Even Love and Death and Sin and Pride and Wrath.?Wounded am I, you are immaculate;
But great Adventurers were my starry guides:?From God's Pavilion to the Flaming Gate
Have I not ridden as an immortal rides??And your dry soul crumbles by dim degrees
To final dust quite happily, it appears,?While all the sweetness of her nectaries
Can only stand within my heart like tears.?O throbbing wounds, rich tears, and splendour spent,--?Ye are all my spoil, and I am well content.
XXXIII
REACTION
Give me a chamber paved with emerald
And hung with arras green as evening skies,?Broidered with halcyons, moons, and heavily thralled
White lilies, cold rare comfort for the eyes.?Of triumph built was radiant yesterday:
Like an imperial eagle to the sun?My soul bare up her dreams the glorious way
Through flagrant ordeals august, and won?To burning eyries, till beneath her wing
Rankled the shaft. Her Archer was abroad;?And hooded with strange darkness, shuddering
Down pain's dull spiral, sank she on the sod.?Close round, green dusk of dews! No more we dare?The blue inviolate castles of the air.
XXXIV
THE IDEALIST
For such an one let lovers cry, Alas!
Since passion's leaguer shall break through in vain?To that cold centre of bright adamas.--
Storm through her being, rapturous spears of pain!?Ye shall not wound that queen of gracious guile,
The soul that with immortal trance keeps troth:?For Helen is in Egypt all the while,
Learning great magic from the Wife of Thoth.?Throned white and high on red-rose porphyry,
And coifed with golden wings, she lifts her eyes?O'er Nile's green lavers where most sacredly
The Pattern of the myriad Lotos lies,?Unto those clear horizons jasper-pale?Her heavenly Brethren ride in silver mail.
XXXV
WOMAN AND VISION
Vainly the Vision of Life entreats those eyes
Where stars of glamour mock at revelations.?But singular fiery moments do surprise
With dreadful or delicious divinations?The whorls of our blue Labyrinth: the sweet
Blind sense of touch tells like an undersong?Marvellous matters. What though snared feet,
And wounded hands, and ravelled coils of wrong,?Plead that the solemn Vision might make whole
Our imperfection?--Fevered second-sight,?Audacious wisdom of the blinded soul,
Dim delicate auroras of delight?That thrill the Dark from startled finger-tips,?Are ye less precious an Apocalypse?
XXXVI
ART AND WOMEN
The Triumph of Art compels few womenkind;
And these are yoked like slaves to Eros' car,--?No victors they! Yet ours the Dream behind,
Who