shines;
My love is tearful as the tallow’s noiseless fall,
As understanding as the darkness of an empty hall.
My love for thee is darkness and white lace
On which a candle, with its silent flame, says grace.
Requiescat In Pace
We begot Love,
You and I—
Love, our first born—
And we clothed her
In lunar brocades,
And held her in our arms;
We heard her laugh
As though an angel
Played upon a lyre
Whose strings were silver fire.
We watched her run to us—
Her hair like willow leaves—
Trailing,
Curving—
And took her hand,
Flesh clothed
In petals of a rose,
Then ran with her—
Our child,
Our first born—
Into the lilac night.
In one satin hand,
She held the small pearl dagger
That you made for her
From words.
Suddenly
Cloud draperies closed
Upon the windows of the stars.
In faltering dark,
Love fell,
The satin hand still clenched.
Blood’s liquid fire flamed bright
Upon her breast,
And died grey ash.
She is dead ………
The child begotten of us,
Our first born………
………
………
I will bury her
Beneath the pear tree;
There only a drift
Of petal snow
Will mark her grave.
Sonnet On Desire
To feel the wild sweet warmth of you, my own,
By reaching out my soul; to gently feel
Curved chest, arm-sinews, pulses never known
Save by the sea’s fierce surge ’gainst naked keel;
To kindle fires in hollows of my form
And feel them blossom in bright aching pain
That veils and bathes the flesh in violent storm
And then knows calm caress of tender rain—
The kiss of supple lips; the quiv’ring stir,
Delicious message of a finger’s touch
Sent through the veins, the heart’s electric murmur
Of “I desire so much – so much—”
With these, no need for heaven and rebirth—
I find the love divine upon this earth.
The Guardian Of The Wood
You came and found me wandering in that tangled,
Tortured wood,
That some call “childhood”,
Alone;
And took me by the hand.
Silently,
Unknown,
You led me through mazèd paths
Where doubt,
With terrifying greenness,
Strives to choke out
Paler petals of the beautiful;
Still on,
Through burr-filled crevices of the mind.
Until now, at last, I find
We stand upon the hill;
And there is light.
Below,
The plain,
Terraced with the struggle of all men;
The rushing river comes
To sweep another from the hill again.
You must turn back now,
Guardian of the Wood;
And I must run behind the plow
That furrows youth’s rich land.
I drop your hand,—
And am alone again.
Yet I shall not be lonely,
Though on the mountain range of age
Should I be exiled;
For Memory shall whisper sweet
That once within the wood you took my hand,
And smiled.
– 30 –