| |
| OUT of the golden remote wild west where the sea without shore is, | |
| Full of the sunset, and sad, if at all, with the fulness of joy, | |
| As a wind sets in with the autumn that blows from the region of stories, | |
| Blows with a perfume of songs and of memories beloved from a boy, | |
| Blows from the capes of the past oversea to the bays of the present, | 5 |
| Filled as with shadow of sound with the pulse of invisible feet, | |
| Far out to the shallows and straits of the future, by rough ways or pleasant, | |
| Is it thither the wind’s wings beat? is it hither to me, O my sweet? | |
| For thee, in the stream of the deep tide-wind blowing in with the water, | |
| Thee I behold as a bird borne in with the wind from the west, | 10 |
| Straight from the sunset, across white waves whence rose as a daughter | |
| Venus thy mother, in years when the world was a water at rest. | |
| Out of the distance of dreams, as a dream that abides after slumber, | |
| Strayed from the fugitive flock of the night, when the moon overhead | |
| Wanes in the wan waste heights of the heaven, and stars without number | 15 |
| Die without sound, and are spent like lamps that are burnt by the dead, | |
| Comes back to me, stays by me, lulls me with touch of forgotten caresses, | |
| One warm dream clad about with a fire as of life that endures; | |
| The delight of thy face, and the sound of thy feet, and the wind of thy tresses, | |
| And all of a man that regrets, and all of a maid that allures. | 20 |
| But thy bosom is warm for my face and profound as a manifold flower, | |
| Thy silence as music, thy voice as an odor that fades in a flame; | |
| Not a dream, not a dream is the kiss of thy mouth, and the bountiful hour | |
| That makes me forget what was sin, and would make me forget were it shame. | |
| Thine eyes that are quiet, thy hands that are tender, thy lips that are loving, | 25 |
| Comfort and cool me as dew in the dawn of a moon like a dream; | |
| And my heart yearns baffled and blind, moved vainly toward thee, and moving | |
| As the refluent seaweed moves in the languid exuberant stream, | |
| Fair as a rose is on earth, as a rose under water in prison, | |
| That stretches and swings to the slow passionate pulse of the sea, | 30 |
| Closed up from the air and the sun, but alive, as a ghost re-arisen, | |
| Pale as the love that revives as a ghost re-arisen in me. | |
| From the bountiful infinite west, from the happy memorial places | |
| Full of the stately repose and the lordly delight of the dead, | |
| Where the fortunate islands are lit with the light of ineffable faces, | 35 |
| And the sound of a sea without wind is about them, and sunset is red, | |
| Come back to redeem and release me from love that recalls and represses, | |
| That cleaves to my flesh as a flame, till the serpent has eaten his fill; | |
| From the bitter delights of the dark, and the feverish, furtive caresses | |
| That murder the youth in a man or ever his heart have its will. | 40 |
| Thy lips cannot laugh and thine eyes cannot weep; thou art pale as a rose is, | |
| Paler and sweeter than leaves that cover the blush of the bud; | |
| And the heart of the flower is compassion, and pity the core it encloses, | |
| Pity, not love, that is born of the breath and decays with the blood. | |
| As the cross that a wild nun clasps till the edge of it bruises her bosom, | 45 |
| So love wounds as we grasp it, and blackens and burns as a flame; | |
| I have loved overmuch in my life: when the live bud bursts with the blossom, | |
| Bitter as ashes or tears is the fruit, and the wine thereof shame. | |
| As a heart that its anguish divides is the green bud cloven asunder; | |
| As the blood of a man self-slain is the flush of the leaves that allure; | 50 |
| And the perfume as poison and wine to the brain, a delight and a wonder; | |
| And the thorns are too sharp for a boy, too slight for a man, to endure. | |
| Too soon did I love it, and lost love’s rose; and I cared not for glory’s: | |
| Only the blossoms of sleep and of pleasure were mixed in my hair. | |
| Was it myrtle or poppy thy garland was woven with, O my Dolores? | 55 |
| Was it pallor or slumber, or blush as of blood, that I found in thee fair? | |
| For desire is a respite from love, and the flesh, not the heart, is her fuel; | |
| She was sweet to me once, who am fled and escaped from the rage of her reign; | |
| Who behold as of old time at hand as I turn, with her mouth growing cruel, | |
| And flushed as with wine with the blood of her lovers, Our Lady of Pain. | 60 |
| Low down where the thicket is thicker with thorns than with leaves in the summer, | |
| In the brake is a gleaming of eyes and a hissing of tongues that I knew; | |
| And the lithe long throats of her snakes reach round her, their mouths overcome her, | |
| And her lips grow cool with their foam, made moist as a desert with dew. | |
| With the thirst and the hunger of lust though her beautiful lips be so bitter, | 65 |
| With the cold foul foam of the snakes they soften and redden and smile; | |
| And her fierce mouth sweetens, her eyes wax wide and her eyelashes glitter, | |
| And she laughs with a savor of blood in her face, and a savor of guile. | |
| She laughs, and her hands reach hither, her hair blows hither and hisses | |
| As a low-lit flame in a wind, back-blown till it shudder and leap; | 70 |
| Let her lips not again lay hold on my soul, nor her poisonous kisses, | |
| To consume it alive and divide from thy bosom, Our Lady of Sleep. | |
| Ah, daughter of sunset and slumber, if now it return into prison, | |
| Who shall redeem it anew? but we, if thou wilt, let us fly; | |
| Let us take to us, now that the white skies thrill with a moon unarisen, | 75 |
| Swift horses of fear or of love, take flight and depart and not die. | |
| They are swifter than dreams, they are stronger than death; there is none that hath ridden, | |
| None that shall ride in the dim strange ways of his life as we ride: | |
| By the meadows of memory, the highlands of hope, and the shore that is hidden, | |
| Where life breaks loud and unseen, a sonorous invisible tide; | 80 |
| By the sands where sorrow has trodden, the salt pools bitter and sterile, | |
| By the thundering reef and the low sea wall and the channel of years, | |
| Our wild steeds press on the night, strain hard through pleasure and peril, | |
| Labor and listen and pant not or pause for the peril that nears; | |
| And the sound of them trampling the way cleaves night as an arrow asunder, | 85 |
| And slow by the sand-hill and swift by the down with its glimpses of grass, | |
| Sudden and steady the music, as eight hoofs trample and thunder, | |
| Rings in the ear of the low blind wind of the night as we pass; | |
| Shrill shrieks in our faces the blind bland air that was mute as a maiden, | |
| Stung into storm by the speed of our passage, and deaf where we past; | 90 |
| And our spirits too burn as we bound, thine holy but mine heavy-laden, | |
| As we burn with the fire of our flight; ah, love, shall we win at the last? | |
| |
