The Hours of Fiammetta | Page 5

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 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