The Hours of Fiammetta | Page 8

ghostlier than peacocks white.
So in my paradise

reserved and fair
I grew as dreamlike as the Elysian dead;
Until a passing Wizard
smote me there,
And suddenly my soul inherited
Some gorgeous terrible dukedom of
desire
Like those in bright Andromeda's realms of fire.
L
AT THE END
The fiery permutations of the soul
Are infinite, but how to be revealed?
On what impassive matter must
the whole
Inveterate coil of good and ill be sealed!
How much too simple all the
tale of deeds
To pattern out these labyrinthine things,
These knots of bright
unreason, ghostly bredes
Veiled weavers weave, moving with silver wings
Within the duskling
sense. Most diverse visions
Their visionaries darkly reconcile
At one sad end. Fate's delicate
derisions
Through the same hell of penance may beguile
Two women, who
meet with alien eyes downcast;
Yet one stand first with Love, and
one the last.
LI
THE SOUL OF AGE
I have seen delicate aged women wrought

Most tenderly by Time, their passionate past
By the wise vigils of
forgiving thought
Amerced of pain, mere beauty at the last.
So may my soul be chaste,
serene, enriched
Like an Etruscan mirror one has found
In kind oblivions, graciously
bewitched
With precious patinas, a various round
Of milky opal, or turkis, or
emerald,
Glistered with rubies faint and smoky pearls,
Where swirls of incised
pattern have enthralled
Figures of sweet archaic gods and girls,
And I shall say: "Thou art a
curious toy,
O soul that mirrored Love and Wrath and Joy!"
LI I
HYPNEROTOMACHIA
Ah! Pride and Wrath and Mirth and Pain and Pity,
Some amethystine day at last will be,
When your bright guard and
Phantasy's hill-city
Shall be like wonders on a tapestry;
And we shall touch between tired
orisons
The symbolism of those freaked crowns and wings,--
Then gaze
across the falling Avalons,
The resignations of autumnal things,
And see among the pointed
cypresses
The one god left, the smiling perverse god,
The Love that will not

leave the loverless,
Contending with the Stranger of the Rod,--
Until these twain become
as one, and all
The Soul and Sense be starrily vesperal.
LIII
THE REVOLT
Not so, my Soul? Rather for thee the fate
Of those hieratic Carthaginian queens
Who needs must vanish
through the gods' own gate,
Even holy Flame, with music and great threnes
Idolatrous, as on soft
gorgeous wings,
If Time's least kiss had subtly disallowed
Their beauty's sacred
unisons?--Fair things
Desire their revel-raiment be their shroud.
Yet, fierce insurgent, cease
vain wars to wage!
Art thou so pure as to decline, forsooth,
These penitential usages of
age
That expiate proud cruelties of youth,
And bring thee to the last and
perfect art,
To love the lovely with a selfless heart?
LIV
AFTER MANY YEARS
By mute communions and by salt sad kisses,
By Pity's webs that still with fiery strands
Wove us together, by the
unplumbed abysses

Where we have gazed and never loosened hands,
By holy water we
have given each other
At Beauty's blessed doors, and by the hearts
Of sweet Delight and
Agony her brother,
By bright new marriages in all great arts,
By the rare wisdom like
miraculous amber
Won by the desolate grey sound of tears,
By wedding-music of the
flute and tambour
Prevailing o'er Time's cruel plot of years,
By all the proud prayers
granted and denied us,
Fate has no sword at all that can divide us.
LV
TREASURE
Not mine the silver ride of the redeemer,
Not mine the secret vision of the saint,
Not mine the martyrdoms of
Truth's dark dreamer
Nor bitter beatitudes of Art. O quaint
Undoing of youth's horoscope!
No splendours
Nor laurels, nor wisdom in a myrrhine bowl!
Here is the treasure that
the past surrenders,
A spoil of roses coffered in the soul,--
Much like another woman's!
Rare perfumes
And cleaving thorns, faded pathetic store
Of kisses and sighs, would
those heroic dooms
I craved of old have yet enriched me more?
I have not dwelt in

Galilee nor Tyre
Nor Athens. But I have my heart's desire.
LVI
THE SOUL TO THE BODY
I know thou hast a secret of thine own
Which I desire. But once I broke with thee
And walked among the
asphodel alone:
Therefore thou wilt reserve this reverie,
Like sumptuous flame closed
up in alabaster.
They half betray, these curious magian hands:
Faint music of thy
breast has throbbed the faster,
If I have touched it with my charming-wands.
And yet,--the wonder
any woman knows
Thou dost deny the proud Soul that has fed
Among the lilies of the
White Eros.--
Ere I go down among the witless Dead
Give, give the secret, for my
bliss or rue,
Lest lack of that should craze my wisdom through.
LVII
THE IRONIST
Among high gods the absolute ironist
Is Love. Therefore, when some cleft lightning mocks
Thine arrogant
rapture, sad idealist,
Admire the wild play of his paradox.
Great satires of reversal have
astounded

His bigots: proud fine dreamers confident
Before an idol in their
image are hounded
Through comedies of disillusionment.
Not heavenly Plato, not the
Florentine,
Not any mage of Epipsychidion
Can