Amores: Poems

YOURS is the shame and sorrow
       But the disgrace is mine;
     Your love was dark and thorough,
     Mine was the love of the sun for a flower
       He creates with his shine.

     I was diligent to explore you,
       Blossom you stalk by stalk,
     Till my fire of creation bore you
     Shrivelling down in the final dour
       Anguish—then I suffered a balk.

     I knew your pain, and it broke
       My fine, craftsman's nerve;
     Your body quailed at my stroke,
     And my courage failed to give you the last
       Fine torture you did deserve.

     You are shapely, you are adorned,
       But opaque and dull in the flesh,
     Who, had I but pierced with the thorned
     Fire-threshing anguish, were fused and cast
       In a lovely illumined mesh.

     Like a painted window: the best
       Suffering burnt through your flesh,
     Undrossed it and left it blest
     With a quivering sweet wisdom of grace: but
          now
       Who shall take you afresh?

     Now who will burn you free
       From your body's terrors and dross,
     Since the fire has failed in me?
     What man will stoop in your flesh to plough
       The shrieking cross?

     A mute, nearly beautiful thing
       Is your face, that fills me with shame
     As I see it hardening,
     Warping the perfect image of God,
       And darkening my eternal fame.

     Now I am all
     One bowl of kisses,
     Such as the tall
     Slim votaresses
     Of Egypt filled
     For a God's excesses.

     I lift to you
     My bowl of kisses,
     And through the temple's
     Blue recesses
     Cry out to you
     In wild caresses.

     And to my lips'
     Bright crimson rim
     The passion slips,
     And down my slim
     White body drips
     The shining hymn.

     And still before
     The altar I
     Exult the bowl
     Brimful, and cry
     To you to stoop
     And drink, Most High.

     Oh drink me up
     That I may be
     Within your cup
     Like a mystery,
     Like wine that is still
     In ecstasy.

     Glimmering still
     In ecstasy,
     Commingled wines
     Of you and me
     In one fulfil
     The mystery.

     A WIND comes from the north
     Blowing little flocks of birds
     Like spray across the town,
     And a train, roaring forth,
     Rushes stampeding down
     With cries and flying curds
     Of steam, out of the darkening north.

     Whither I turn and set
     Like a needle steadfastly,
     Waiting ever to get
     The news that she is free;
     But ever fixed, as yet,
     To the lode of her agony.

OH the green glimmer of apples in the orchard,
     Lamps in a wash of rain!
     Oh the wet walk of my brown hen through the stack-yard,
     Oh tears on the window pane!

     Nothing now will ripen the bright green apples,
     Full of disappointment and of rain,
     Brackish they will taste, of tears, when the yellow
         dapples
     Of autumn tell the withered tale again.

     All round the yard it is cluck, my brown hen,
     Cluck, and the rain-wet wings,
     Cluck, my marigold bird, and again
     Cluck for your yellow darlings.

     For the grey rat found the gold thirteen
     Huddled away in the dark,
     Flutter for a moment, oh the beast is quick and
         keen,
     Extinct one yellow-fluffy spark.

     Once I had a lover bright like running water,
     Once his face was laughing like the sky;
     Open like the sky looking down in all its laughter
     On the buttercups, and the buttercups was I.

     What, then, is there hidden in the skirts of all the
         blossom?
     What is peeping from your wings, oh mother
         hen?
     'Tis the sun who asks the question, in a lovely haste
         for wisdom;
     What a lovely haste for wisdom is in men!

     Yea, but it is cruel when undressed is all the blossom,
     And her shift is lying white upon the floor,
     That a grey one, like a shadow, like a rat, a thief, a
         rain-storm,
     Creeps upon her then and gathers in his store.

     Oh the grey garner that is full of half-grown apples,
     Oh the golden sparkles laid extinct!
     And oh, behind the cloud-sheaves, like yellow autumn
         dapples,
     Did you see the wicked sun that winked!

AT the open door of the room I stand and look at
         the night,
     Hold my hand to catch the raindrops, that slant into
         sight,
     Arriving grey from the darkness above suddenly into
         the light of the room.
     I will escape from the hollow room, the box of light,
     And be out in the bewildering darkness, which is
         always fecund, which might
     Mate my hungry soul with a germ of its womb.

     I will go out to the night, as a man goes down to the
         shore
     To draw his net through the surfs thin line, at the
         dawn before
     The sun warms the sea, little, lonely and sad, sifting
         the sobbing tide.
     I will sift the surf that edges the night, with my net,
         the four
     Strands of my eyes and my lips and my hands and my
         feet, sifting the store
     Of flotsam until my soul is tired or satisfied.

     I will catch in my eyes' quick net
     The faces of all the women as they go past,
     Bend over them with my soul, to cherish the wet
     Cheeks and wet hair a moment, saying: "Is it
         you?"
     Looking earnestly under the dark umbrellas, held
         fast
     Against the wind; and if, where the lamplight
         blew
     Its rainy swill about us, she answered me
     With a laugh and a merry wildness that it was she
     Who was seeking me, and had found me at last to
         free
     Me now from the stunting bonds of my chastity,
     How glad I should be!

     Moving along in the mysterious ebb of the night
     Pass the men whose eyes are shut like anemones in a
         dark pool;
     Why don't they open with vision and speak to me,
         what have they in sight?
     Why do I wander aimless among them, desirous
         fool?

     I can always linger over the huddled books on the
         stalls,
     Always gladden my amorous fingers with the touch
         of their leaves,
     Always kneel in courtship to the shelves in the
         doorways, where falls
     The shadow, always offer myself to one mistress,
         who always receives.

     But oh, it is not enough, it is all no good.
     There is something I want to feel in my running
         blood,
     Something I want to touch; I must hold my face to
         the rain,
     I must hold my face to the wind, and let it explain
     Me its life as it hurries in secret.
     I will trail my hands again through the drenched,
         cold leaves
     Till my hands are full of the chillness and touch of
         leaves,
     Till at length they induce me to sleep, and to forget.

       As a drenched, drowned bee
     Hangs numb and heavy from a bending flower,
       So clings to me
     My baby, her brown hair brushed with wet tears
       And laid against her cheek;
     Her soft white legs hanging heavily over my arm
     Swinging heavily to my movement as I walk.
       My sleeping baby hangs upon my life,
     Like a burden she hangs on me.
       She has always seemed so light,
     But now she is wet with tears and numb with pain
     Even her floating hair sinks heavily,
       Reaching downwards;
     As the wings of a drenched, drowned bee
       Are a heaviness, and a weariness.

THE hoar-frost crumbles in the sun,
       The crisping steam of a train
     Melts in the air, while two black birds
       Sweep past the window again.

     Along the vacant road, a red
       Bicycle approaches; I wait
     In a thaw of anxiety, for the boy
       To leap down at our gate.

     He has passed us by; but is it
       Relief that starts in my breast?
     Or a deeper bruise of knowing that still
       She has no rest.

     I HAVE fetched the tears up out of the little wells,
     Scooped them up with small, iron words,
          Dripping over the runnels.

     The harsh, cold wind of my words drove on, and still
     I watched the tears on the guilty cheek of the boys
          Glitter and spill.

     Cringing Pity, and Love, white-handed, came
     Hovering about the Judgment which stood in my
               eyes,
          Whirling a flame.

          .     .     .     .     .     .     .

     The tears are dry, and the cheeks' young fruits are
               fresh
     With laughter, and clear the exonerated eyes, since
               pain
          Beat through the flesh.

     The Angel of Judgment has departed again to the
               Nearness.
     Desolate I am as a church whose lights are put out.
          And night enters in drearness.

     The fire rose up in the bush and blazed apace,
     The thorn-leaves crackled and twisted and sweated in
               anguish;
          Then God left the place.

     Like a flower that the frost has hugged and let go,
               my head
     Is heavy, and my heart beats slowly, laboriously,
          My strength is shed.

IF I could have put you in my heart,
     If but I could have wrapped you in myself,
     How glad I should have been!
     And now the chart
     Of memory unrolls again to me
     The course of our journey here, before we had to
         part.

     And oh, that you had never, never been
     Some of your selves, my love, that some
     Of your several faces I had never seen!
     And still they come before me, and they go,
     And I cry aloud in the moments that intervene.

     And oh, my love, as I rock for you to-night,
     And have not any longer any hope
     To heal the suffering, or make requite
     For all your life of asking and despair,
     I own that some of me is dead to-night.

MY love looks like a girl to-night,
           But she is old.
     The plaits that lie along her pillow
           Are not gold,
     But threaded with filigree,
           And uncanny cold.

     She looks like a young maiden, since her brow
           Is smooth and fair,
     Her cheeks are very smooth, her eyes are closed,
           She sleeps a rare
     Still winsome sleep, so still, and so composed.

     Nay, but she sleeps like a bride, and dreams her
                dreams
           Of perfect things.
     She lies at last, the darling, in the shape of her dream,
           And her dead mouth sings
     By its shape, like the thrushes in clear evenings.

MY little love, my darling,
     You were a doorway to me;
     You let me out of the confines
     Into this strange countrie,
     Where people are crowded like thistles,
     Yet are shapely and comely to see.

     My little love, my dearest
     Twice have you issued me,
     Once from your womb, sweet mother,
     Once from myself, to be
     Free of all hearts, my darling,
     Of each heart's home-life free.

     And so, my love, my mother,
     I shall always be true to you;
     Twice I am born, my dearest,
     To life, and to death, in you;
     And this is the life hereafter
     Wherein I am true.

     I kiss you good-bye, my darling,
     Our ways are different now;
     You are a seed in the night-time,
     I am a man, to plough
     The difficult glebe of the future
     For God to endow.

     I kiss you good-bye, my dearest,
     It is finished between us here.
     Oh, if I were calm as you are,
     Sweet and still on your bier!
     God, if I had not to leave you
     Alone, my dear!

     Let the last word be uttered,
     Oh grant the farewell is said!
     Spare me the strength to leave you
     Now you are dead.
     I must go, but my soul lies helpless
     Beside your bed.

THE pine-trees bend to listen to the autumn wind
         as it mutters
     Something which sets the black poplars ashake with
         hysterical laughter;
     While slowly the house of day is closing its eastern
         shutters.

     Further down the valley the clustered tombstones
         recede,
     Winding about their dimness the mist's grey
         cerements, after
     The street lamps in the darkness have suddenly
         started to bleed.

     The leaves fly over the window and utter a word as
         they pass
     To the face that leans from the darkness, intent, with
         two dark-filled eyes
     That watch for ever earnestly from behind the window
         glass.

     Too far away, oh love, I know,
     To save me from this haunted road,
     Whose lofty roses break and blow
     On a night-sky bent with a load

     Of lights: each solitary rose,
     Each arc-lamp golden does expose
     Ghost beyond ghost of a blossom, shows
     Night blenched with a thousand snows.

     Of hawthorn and of lilac trees,
     White lilac; shows discoloured night
     Dripping with all the golden lees
     Laburnum gives back to light

     And shows the red of hawthorn set
     On high to the purple heaven of night,
     Like flags in blenched blood newly wet,
     Blood shed in the noiseless fight.

     Of life for love and love for life,
     Of hunger for a little food,
     Of kissing, lost for want of a wife
     Long ago, long ago wooed.
        .      .      .      .      .      .
     Too far away you are, my love,
     To steady my brain in this phantom show
     That passes the nightly road above
     And returns again below.

     The enormous cliff of horse-chestnut trees
       Has poised on each of its ledges
     An erect small girl looking down at me;
     White-night-gowned little chits I see,
       And they peep at me over the edges
     Of the leaves as though they would leap, should
              I call
       Them down to my arms;
     "But, child, you're too small for me, too small
       Your little charms."

     White little sheaves of night-gowned maids,
       Some other will thresh you out!
     And I see leaning from the shades
     A lilac like a lady there, who braids
       Her white mantilla about
     Her face, and forward leans to catch the sight
         Of a man's face,
     Gracefully sighing through the white
         Flowery mantilla of lace.

     And another lilac in purple veiled
       Discreetly, all recklessly calls
     In a low, shocking perfume, to know who has hailed
     Her forth from the night: my strength has failed
       In her voice, my weak heart falls:
     Oh, and see the laburnum shimmering
         Her draperies down,
     As if she would slip the gold, and glimmering
         White, stand naked of gown.

          .      .      .      .      .      .

     The pageant of flowery trees above
       The street pale-passionate goes,
     And back again down the pavement, Love
       In a lesser pageant flows.

     Two and two are the folk that walk,
       They pass in a half embrace
     Of linkèd bodies, and they talk
       With dark face leaning to face.

     Come then, my love, come as you will
       Along this haunted road,
     Be whom you will, my darling, I shall
       Keep with you the troth I trowed.

WHY does the thin grey strand
     Floating up from the forgotten
     Cigarette between my fingers,
     Why does it trouble me?

     Ah, you will understand;
     When I carried my mother downstairs,
     A few times only, at the beginning
     Of her soft-foot malady,

     I should find, for a reprimand
     To my gaiety, a few long grey hairs
     On the breast of my coat; and one by one
     I let them float up the dark chimney.

THE acrid scents of autumn,
     Reminiscent of slinking beasts, make me fear
     Everything, tear-trembling stars of autumn
     And the snore of the night in my ear.

     For suddenly, flush-fallen,
     All my life, in a rush
     Of shedding away, has left me
     Naked, exposed on the bush.

     I, on the bush of the globe,
     Like a newly-naked berry, shrink
     Disclosed: but I also am prowling
     As well in the scents that slink

     Abroad: I in this naked berry
     Of flesh that stands dismayed on the bush;
     And I in the stealthy, brindled odours
     Prowling about the lush

     And acrid night of autumn;
     My soul, along with the rout,
     Rank and treacherous, prowling,
     Disseminated out.

     For the night, with a great breath intaken,
     Has taken my spirit outside
     Me, till I reel with disseminated consciousness,
     Like a man who has died.

     At the same time I stand exposed
     Here on the bush of the globe,
     A newly-naked berry of flesh
     For the stars to probe.

SINCE you did depart
     Out of my reach, my darling,
     Into the hidden,
     I see each shadow start
     With recognition, and I
     Am wonder-ridden.

     I am dazed with the farewell,
     But I scarcely feel your loss.
     You left me a gift
     Of tongues, so the shadows tell
     Me things, and silences toss
     Me their drift.

     You sent me a cloven fire
     Out of death, and it burns in the draught
     Of the breathing hosts,
     Kindles the darkening pyre
     For the sorrowful, till strange brands waft
     Like candid ghosts.

     Form after form, in the streets
     Waves like a ghost along,
     Kindled to me;
     The star above the house-top greets
     Me every eve with a long
     Song fierily.

     All day long, the town
     Glimmers with subtle ghosts
     Going up and down
     In a common, prison-like dress;
     But their daunted looking flickers
     To me, and I answer, Yes!

     So I am not lonely nor sad
     Although bereaved of you,
     My little love.
     I move among a kinsfolk clad
     With words, but the dream shows through
     As they move.

SINCE I lost you I am silence-haunted,
       Sounds wave their little wings
     A moment, then in weariness settle
       On the flood that soundless swings.

     Whether the people in the street
       Like pattering ripples go by,
     Or whether the theatre sighs and sighs
       With a loud, hoarse sigh:

     Or the wind shakes a ravel of light
       Over the dead-black river,
     Or night's last echoing
       Makes the daybreak shiver:

     I feel the silence waiting
       To take them all up again
     In its vast completeness, enfolding
       The sound of men.

     I LISTEN to the stillness of you,
        My dear, among it all;
     I feel your silence touch my words as I talk,
        And take them in thrall.

     My words fly off a forge
        The length of a spark;
     I see the night-sky easily sip them
        Up in the dark.

     The lark sings loud and glad,
        Yet I am not loth
     That silence should take the song and the bird
        And lose them both.

     A train goes roaring south,
        The steam-flag flying;
     I see the stealthy shadow of silence
        Alongside going.

     And off the forge of the world,
        Whirling in the draught of life,
     Go sparks of myriad people, filling
        The night with strife.

     Yet they never change the darkness
        Or blench it with noise;
     Alone on the perfect silence
        The stars are buoys.

     A YELLOW leaf from the darkness
     Hops like a frog before me.
     Why should I start and stand still?

     I was watching the woman that bore me
     Stretched in the brindled darkness
     Of the sick-room, rigid with will
     To die: and the quick leaf tore me
     Back to this rainy swill
     Of leaves and lamps and traffic mingled before me.

     How many times, like lotus lilies risen
        Upon the surface of a river, there
        Have risen floating on my blood the rare
     Soft glimmers of my hope escaped from prison.

     So I am clothed all over with the light
        And sensitive beautiful blossoming of passion;
        Till naked for her in the finest fashion
     The flowers of all my mud swim into sight.

     And then I offer all myself unto
        This woman who likes to love me: but she turns
        A look of hate upon the flower that burns
     To break and pour her out its precious dew.

     And slowly all the blossom shuts in pain,
        And all the lotus buds of love sink over
        To die unopened: when my moon-faced lover,
     Kind on the weight of suffering, smiles again.

THE sick grapes on the chair by the bed lie prone;
         at the window
     The tassel of the blind swings gently, tapping the
         pane,
     As a little wind comes in.
     The room is the hollow rind of a fruit, a gourd
     Scooped out and dry, where a spider,
     Folded in its legs as in a bed,
     Lies on the dust, watching where is nothing to see
         but twilight and walls.

     And if the day outside were mine! What is the day
     But a grey cave, with great grey spider-cloths
         hanging
     Low from the roof, and the wet dust falling softly
         from them
     Over the wet dark rocks, the houses, and over
     The spiders with white faces, that scuttle on the
         floor of the cave!
     I am choking with creeping, grey confinedness.

     But somewhere birds, beside a lake of light, spread
         wings
     Larger than the largest fans, and rise in a stream
         upwards
     And upwards on the sunlight that rains invisible,
     So that the birds are like one wafted feather,
     Small and ecstatic suspended over a vast spread
         country.

     A BIG bud of moon hangs out of the twilight,
       Star-spiders spinning their thread
     Hang high suspended, withouten respite
       Watching us overhead.

     Come then under the trees, where the leaf-cloths
       Curtain us in so dark
     That here we're safe from even the ermin-moth's
       Flitting remark.

     Here in this swarthy, secret tent,
       Where black boughs flap the ground,
     You shall draw the thorn from my discontent,
       Surgeon me sound.

     This rare, rich night! For in here
       Under the yew-tree tent
     The darkness is loveliest where I could sear
       You like frankincense into scent.

     Here not even the stars can spy us,
       Not even the white moths write
     With their little pale signs on the wall, to try us
       And set us affright.

     Kiss but then the dust from off my lips,
       But draw the turgid pain
     From my breast to your bosom, eclipse
       My soul again.

     Waste me not, I beg you, waste
       Not the inner night:
     Taste, oh taste and let me taste
       The core of delight.

THE moon is broken in twain, and half a moon
     Before me lies on the still, pale floor of the sky;
     The other half of the broken coin of troth
     Is buried away in the dark, where the still dead lie.
     They buried her half in the grave when they laid her
         away;
     I had pushed it gently in among the thick of her hair
     Where it gathered towards the plait, on that very
         last day;
     And like a moon in secret it is shining there.

     My half shines in the sky, for a general sign
     Of the troth with the dead I pledged myself to keep;
     Turning its broken edge to the dark, it shines indeed
     Like the sign of a lover who turns to the dark of
         sleep.
     Against my heart the inviolate sleep breaks still
     In darkened waves whose breaking echoes o'er
     The wondering world of my wakeful day, till I'm
         lost
     In the midst of the places I knew so well before.

MANY years have I still to burn, detained
     Like a candle flame on this body; but I enshrine
     A darkness within me, a presence which sleeps
         contained
     In my flame of living, her soul enfolded in mine.

     And through these years, while I burn on the fuel of
         life,
     What matter the stuff I lick up in my living flame,
     Seeing I keep in the fire-core, inviolate,
     A night where she dreams my dreams for me, ever
         the same.

WHEN along the pavement,
     Palpitating flames of life,
     People flicker round me,
     I forget my bereavement,
     The gap in the great constellation,
     The place where a star used to be.

     Nay, though the pole-star
     Is blown out like a candle,
     And all the heavens are wandering in disarray,
     Yet when pleiads of people are
     Deployed around me, and I see
     The street's long outstretched Milky Way,

     When people flicker down the pavement,
     I forget my bereavement.

THIS spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,
     Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes,
     Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between
     Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering
         rushes.

     I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration
     Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze
     Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration,
     Faces of people streaming across my gaze.

     And I, what fountain of fire am I among
     This leaping combustion of spring? My spirit is
         tossed
     About like a shadow buffeted in the throng
     Of flames, a shadow that's gone astray, and is lost.

HAD I but known yesterday,
     Helen, you could discharge the ache
         Out of the cloud;
     Had I known yesterday you could take
     The turgid electric ache away,
         Drink it up with your proud
     White body, as lovely white lightning
     Is drunk from an agonised sky by the earth,
     I might have hated you, Helen.

     But since my limbs gushed full of fire,
     Since from out of my blood and bone
         Poured a heavy flame
     To you, earth of my atmosphere, stone
     Of my steel, lovely white flint of desire,
         You have no name.
     Earth of my swaying atmosphere,
     Substance of my inconstant breath,
     I cannot but cleave to you.

     Since you have drunken up the drear
     Painful electric storm, and death
         Is washed from the blue
     Of my eyes, I see you beautiful.
     You are strong and passive and beautiful,
     I come like winds that uncertain hover;
         But you
     Are the earth I hover over.

HER tawny eyes are onyx of thoughtlessness,
     Hardened they are like gems in ancient modesty;
     Yea, and her mouth's prudent and crude caress
     Means even less than her many words to me.

     Though her kiss betrays me also this, this only
     Consolation, that in her lips her blood at climax
         clips
     Two wild, dumb paws in anguish on the lonely
     Fruit of my heart, ere down, rebuked, it slips.

     I know from her hardened lips that still her heart is
     Hungry for me, yet if I put my hand in her breast
     She puts me away, like a saleswoman whose mart is
     Endangered by the pilferer on his quest.

     But her hands are still the woman, the large, strong
         hands
     Heavier than mine, yet like leverets caught in
         steel
     When I hold them; my still soul understands
     Their dumb confession of what her sort must feel.

     For never her hands come nigh me but they lift
     Like heavy birds from the morning stubble, to
         settle
     Upon me like sleeping birds, like birds that shift
     Uneasily in their sleep, disturbing my mettle.

     How caressingly she lays her hand on my knee,
     How strangely she tries to disown it, as it sinks
     In my flesh and bone and forages into me,
     How it stirs like a subtle stoat, whatever she
         thinks!

     And often I see her clench her fingers tight
     And thrust her fists suppressed in the folds of her
         skirt;
     And sometimes, how she grasps her arms with her
         bright
     Big hands, as if surely her arms did hurt.

     And I have seen her stand all unaware
     Pressing her spread hands over her breasts, as she
     Would crush their mounds on her heart, to kill in
         there
     The pain that is her simple ache for me.

     Her strong hands take my part, the part of a man
     To her; she crushes them into her bosom deep
     Where I should lie, and with her own strong
         span
     Closes her arms, that should fold me in sleep.

     Ah, and she puts her hands upon the wall,
     Presses them there, and kisses her bright hands,
     Then lets her black hair loose, the darkness fall
     About her from her maiden-folded bands.

     And sits in her own dark night of her bitter hair
     Dreaming—God knows of what, for to me she's
         the same
     Betrothed young lady who loves me, and takes care
     Of her womanly virtue and of my good name.

     I WONDER, can the night go by;
     Can this shot arrow of travel fly
     Shaft-golden with light, sheer into the sky
         Of a dawned to-morrow,
     Without ever sleep delivering us
     From each other, or loosing the dolorous
         Unfruitful sorrow!

     What is it then that you can see
     That at the window endlessly
     You watch the red sparks whirl and flee
         And the night look through?
     Your presence peering lonelily there
     Oppresses me so, I can hardly bear
         To share the train with you.

     You hurt my heart-beats' privacy;
     I wish I could put you away from me;
     I suffocate in this intimacy,
         For all that I love you;
     How I have longed for this night in the train,
     Yet now every fibre of me cries in pain
         To God to remove you.

     But surely my soul's best dream is still
     That one night pouring down shall swill
     Us away in an utter sleep, until
         We are one, smooth-rounded.
     Yet closely bitten in to me
     Is this armour of stiff reluctancy
         That keeps me impounded.

     So, dear love, when another night
     Pours on us, lift your fingers white
     And strip me naked, touch me light,
         Light, light all over.
     For I ache most earnestly for your touch,
     Yet I cannot move, however much
         I would be your lover.

     Night after night with a blemish of day
     Unblown and unblossomed has withered away;
     Come another night, come a new night, say
         Will you pluck me apart?
     Will you open the amorous, aching bud
     Of my body, and loose the burning flood
         That would leap to you from my heart?

HOLLOW rang the house when I knocked on the door,
     And I lingered on the threshold with my hand
     Upraised to knock and knock once more:
     Listening for the sound of her feet across the floor,
     Hollow re-echoed my heart.

     The low-hung lamps stretched down the road
     With shadows drifting underneath,
     With a music of soft, melodious feet
     Quickening my hope as I hastened to meet
     The low-hung light of her eyes.

     The golden lamps down the street went out,
     The last car trailed the night behind;
     And I in the darkness wandered about
     With a flutter of hope and of dark-shut doubt
     In the dying lamp of my love.

     Two brown ponies trotting slowly
     Stopped at a dim-lit trough to drink:
     The dark van drummed down the distance slowly;
     While the city stars so dim and holy
     Drew nearer to search through the streets.

     A hastening car swept shameful past,
     I saw her hid in the shadow,
     I saw her step to the curb, and fast
     Run to the silent door, where last
     I had stood with my hand uplifted.
     She clung to the door in her haste to enter,
     Entered, and quickly cast
     It shut behind her, leaving the street aghast.