I.Rosenberg

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'Ah, Koelue . . .'

Ah, Koelue!

Had you embalmed your beauty, so

It could not backward go,

Or change in any way,

What were the use, if on my eyes

The embalming spices were not laid

To keep us fixed,

Two amorous sculptures passioned endlessly?

What were the use, if my sight grew,

And its far branches were cloud-hung,

You small at the roots, like grass,

While the new lips my spirit would kiss

Were not red lips of flesh,

But the huge kiss of power?

Where yesterday soft hair through my fingers fell,

A shaggy mane would entwine,

And no slim form work fire to my thighs,

But human Life's inarticulate mass

Throb the pulse of a thing

Whose mountain flanks awry

Beg my mastery -- mine!

Ah! I will ride the dizzy beast of the owrld

My road -- my way!

Back to Siegfried Sassoon
Forward to Robert Nichols