BRIEF ROMANCE IN TIME OF ABSENCE
I
The little new-born death which comes each night
Wherein with consciousness for the one light
We lie stretched out beside our books
Whence flightless words by my hand vexed escape,
Within this family crypt
In which mirrored in every glass, in every place, lies evidence of
crime,
Even in whose wardrobes closed, dwells chrysalis of old farewells made
frail,
With which we drench deathlessly days to come,
In all pendants aswing from all the lights,
With in the poison of each cup we drain,
In this electric-chair where our disguise of day we fling by night,
To swathe our lonely self in white graveclothes,
All my poor heart can do is to mark time
Or like a circus tiger pace my pen
Raging for liberty.
Unto our graves now all of us have gone
And in good time and properly,
In ambulances costly, convening,
To death gone naturally or by our will.
Alone I can not carry on the play, and perfectly,
With only the lone moon important in its part,
Because now
Trains are everywhere
To fling their sorrow-cries abroad
And then go on.
All the moon can do is shine
With little fireflies which keep watch too,
From that vast azure near and yet unknown
And filled with stars countless and polyglot.
II
You, I myself, dry as a wind of waste, of ruin,
Which sustains but briefly in its arms a leaf the dry tree drops,
How can it be that nothing can move you more,
That the destroying deluge is no more, nor more the sun make weary?
A purposeless transparency to become
Above those twin limpid azure lakes which are your eyes.
Oh the tempests! Oh the deluges of long ago!
If since then I seek you ever who were so wholly mine,
Within my sterile hands the last dried-drop of blood, your tears,
If then the world became indifferent to me, endless the deserts,
And night too heavy with memory of your arms,
Without you in bright day how can I breath?
Your sweet eyes without, and your mouth wholly mine?
Without your arms impalpable between my own?
I weep like to a mother who replaced strangely her own son dead.
I weep like to the earth which twice has felt fruit germinate, perfect,
the same,
I weep because you were my grief,
Already now I too belong with you within the past.
III
This perfume of your flesh and so intense
Is nothing but the world these two round azure globes which are your
eyes displace,
and the land, and the azure vein-rivers you arms prison,
All the round, gold oranges there are dwell divinely in your anguished
kiss
Yielded that rich garden beside where life for all the centuries there
are ended for me.
The infinite air, how far away, with which we breathed!
Out of the ground I pulled you up by the drunken roots of your two
hands
And now entirely I have drunk you down, delectable, Oh Perfect Fruit!
Forever now whene’er the sun touches my skin again
I’ll feel that sharp contact which you gave me
within that dawn of freshness undivined,
In the caressing strength of those two rivers pure and clear which
are your arms,
Brought back and sharp by the sweet wind which in the dusk
Blows from the mountains for the breath of you,
And ripened I your eighteen years of sun,
And warm for me who wait.
IV
STATUE
Beside your body wholly here made mine,
Your smooth pure shoulders beside whence branch the roadways of your
arms,
Whence too your voice is born, your azure glance remote and clear,
Suddenly I sensed the infinite acute of absence, all its grave emptiness,
Of all these years which I miss so,
Like to a vine which climbs the wind then clings,
With senses fine I measured what came to keep, what went, with each
contact,
Tearing the calendar that holds naught save a date, with greed,
Your name vibrating grandly grows; and more profound always.
Because your voice was but for my own ears alone,
Because I shut my eyes when your eyes went away
And left my soul so lone—a temple desolate.
This statue is naught save a foreign god,
Forged from out memories, reflection flung from me,
With my pure smoothness sweet, glorious with my desires.
A masking sham—
Statue I raise to you.
V
Today your eyes have lost the stars they wore
And I am shipwrecked too and wan with waves
Who swim out unto your body’s far shore
Where my own voice can call the name I bore,
Where there is gold and azure, day that’s new,
Grainlike and ripe, perfected, silent too.
In you my solitude once more seeks grace—
In thought of you! This swift change which seeps o’er,
some muted passion which your glances wore
Have touched with fiercer fire my life a space.
Fast-fleeting, far, far foam—seaweed—my kiss
Could worlds create again across your eyes!
Naked the shore there, lone, but rich for bliss,
And back the stars would blaze where bleakness lies.
A flower—and made to bloom for ruin vainly!
A world of joy and dead by fate’s decree?
My gift—all fruit-ripe, grain—rich things to be
Which bitter suns like yours seek surely.
VI
VARIATIONS ON A THEME OF LOVE
Safe in the shelter of four walls there
I tried to conceal my joy you see,
But what of the growing fruit, what of the air,
How could I keep them alone for me?
The lucky hour I delayed sadly,
Took a road I did not choose to go,
The voices which were alone for me,
a fate which I did not wish to know.
How you changed, grew shabby who once were fair,
And bitter all that seemed sweet to me
Whom my love had circled so tenderly,
Safe in the shelter of four walls there!
Betwixt your dawn and my own sunsetting
time itself stood still then forgot to be,
Ours it was once but of my begetting,
Blood, lips, wine, and the wine-cup of me.
With passion to carry on and with folly
My shadow grew one with the flame of you,
Hooded and black now and cloaked from view
I tried to conceal my joy you see.
But what of the growing fruit, what of the air
Now that Time was dead and had ceased to be,
What of your presence always there,
Powerful and young, likewise sweet to me?
The blood of you pulsed through my veins richly,
Bonds of an instant grew strong you see,
Safe in the shelter of four walls there
How could I keep them alone for me?
VII
I gave to a song my grief for the loss of you!
I must wash my eyes of the eyes of you—
Twin pharos prolonging my sad shipwreck.
I must seize back life which your hands destroyed,—
Naught but mist perhaps, swirling, frail, and adrift,
Of ephemeral wings of the wind the rack…
Give me back my night again, black, voiceless,
Naked and stripped of dream-joys with you!
The dawn I love no more now, reckless of day
Which finds us still alien … still far away.
VIII
No more can I hope to find you again!
And still your lips and my own are one,
And your sterile hands have marred nowise
The mercuried mirror where my light lies.
Woe is me who loved so the power of you
Even if that power were all born of me!
Woe is me who awaited death you see
While instead I gave death to you.
IX
ABSENCE
My only love and so wholly mine
Making desirable my days,
How well we both know what absence is
Since the flesh hinders us so always!
My hands to be sure have forgotten you
But my eyes can see you as I tell,
Whenever the world grows bitter for me
I shut them both then I see you well.
I never want to meet you again
Who are with me always, I do not care
How I shatter to pieces life which is yours
Which for me weaves this dream so fair.
Just as one day you said to me
that it is your living image I own,
Because daily I wash my eyes
With the tears wherein your memory shone.
One went away but it was not you,
My love whom the silences can claim,
If my two arms even and my mouth
Went away with the words the name.
This is not I, the other it is
Silent as usual but lasting for aye,
Just like this love so wholly mine
Which will go on with me till I die.
SEA SONG
The waves that dance with their weaving hands,
Azured and infinite, numberless,
Fickle forms under a sun the great clouds dim…
O the Clouds! O the Waves the ship shivers and skims.
With flight of white petals, flower-lit jasper that flows!
O the Sea!—silent, white, ‘neath the cleansing of dawn
When the sun drips dew on this chalcedon cup that sings,
And the limiting sky-line far is cloistered,
Some clouds’ white marble the wind’s sculpturing…
Making slim, swathing swift.
O the Twilight Sea!—when the song begins,
Many hued, crystal clear, far too profound,
Gray-steel smooth, petal snow, pearl-necklet foam,
The little waves play, chase each other, wreathed garland-spray,
Sodden swept-silver, orange leaves, lemon bloom…
O the Silence!—somber as presage of woe
For eager eyes that peer uselessly
‘Cross fold of white hands that implore and implore a heaven
Lost like a sea-wrecked ship
to come back from grief-draped clouds.
Within the harbor at last wearied,
Like a strong athlete and young
Who thrills to know
That under the rippling zephyr-ribbed
Mirror veil’s soft concave skin
There are savor-rich depths below.
On again we go with a vagabond moon
Which dogs our steps like a distant self…
Grand yesterday but now lazy with dawn,
And sweet things which are forgetless.
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