I WILL give you all my keys,
                 You shall be my châtelaine,
               You shall enter as you please,
                 As you please shall go again.

               When I hear you jingling through
                 All the chambers of my soul,
               How I sit and laugh at you
                 In your vain housekeeping rôle.

               Jealous of the smallest cover,
                 Angry at the simplest door;
               Well, you anxious, inquisitive lover,
                 Are you pleased with what's in store?

               You have fingered all my treasures,
                 Have you not, most curiously,
               Handled all my tools and measures
                 And masculine machinery?

               Over every single beauty
                 You have had your little rapture;
               You have slain, as was your duty,
                 Every sin-mouse you could capture.

               Still you are not satisfied,
                 Still you tremble faint reproach;
               Challenge me I keep aside
                 Secrets that you may not broach.

               Maybe yes, and maybe no,
                 Maybe there are secret places,
               Altars barbarous below,
                 Elsewhere halls of high disgraces.

               Maybe yes, and maybe no,
                 You may have it as you please,
               Since I choose to keep you so,
                 Suppliant on your curious knees.

THE quick sparks on the gorse bushes are leaping,
     Little jets of sunlight-texture imitating flame;
     Above them, exultant, the pee-wits are sweeping:
     They are lords of the desolate wastes of sadness
         their screamings proclaim.

     Rabbits, handfuls of brown earth, lie
     Low-rounded on the mournful grass they have bitten
         down to the quick.
     Are they asleep?—Are they alive?—Now see,
         when I
     Move my arms the hill bursts and heaves under their
         spurting kick.

     The common flaunts bravely; but below, from the
         rushes
     Crowds of glittering king-cups surge to challenge the
         blossoming bushes;
     There the lazy streamlet pushes
     Its curious course mildly; here it wakes again, leaps,
         laughs, and gushes.

     Into a deep pond, an old sheep-dip,
     Dark, overgrown with willows, cool, with the brook
         ebbing through so slow,
     Naked on the steep, soft lip
     Of the bank I stand watching my own white shadow
         quivering to and fro.

     What if the gorse flowers shrivelled and kissing were
         lost?
     Without the pulsing waters, where were the marigolds
         and the songs of the brook?
     If my veins and my breasts with love embossed
     Withered, my insolent soul would be gone like flowers
         that the hot wind took.

     So my soul like a passionate woman turns,
     Filled with remorseful terror to the man she scorned,
         and her love
     For myself in my own eyes' laughter burns,
     Runs ecstatic over the pliant folds rippling down to
         my belly from the breast-lights above.

     Over my sunlit skin the warm, clinging air,
     Rich with the songs of seven larks singing at once,
         goes kissing me glad.
     And the soul of the wind and my blood compare
     Their wandering happiness, and the wind, wasted in
         liberty, drifts on and is sad.

     Oh but the water loves me and folds me,
     Plays with me, sways me, lifts me and sinks me as
         though it were living blood,
     Blood of a heaving woman who holds me,
     Owning my supple body a rare glad thing, supremely
         good.

SOMEWHERE the long mellow note of the blackbird
     Quickens the unclasping hands of hazel,
     Somewhere the wind-flowers fling their heads back,
     Stirred by an impetuous wind. Some ways'll
     All be sweet with white and blue violet.
         (Hush now, hush. Where am I?—Biuret—)

     On the green wood's edge a shy girl hovers
     From out of the hazel-screen on to the grass,
     Where wheeling and screaming the petulant plovers
     Wave frighted. Who comes? A labourer, alas!
     Oh the sunset swims in her eyes' swift pool.
         (Work, work, you fool—!)

     Somewhere the lamp hanging low from the ceiling
     Lights the soft hair of a girl as she reads,
     And the red firelight steadily wheeling
     Weaves the hard hands of my friend in sleep.
     And the white dog snuffs the warmth, appealing
     For the man to heed lest the girl shall weep.

     (Tears and dreams for them; for me
     Bitter science—the exams. are near.
     I wish I bore it more patiently.
     I wish you did not wait, my dear,
     For me to come: since work I must:
     Though it's all the same when we are dead.—
     I wish I was only a bust,
           All head.)

OUTSIDE the house an ash-tree hung its terrible
         whips,
     And at night when the wind arose, the lash of the tree
     Shrieked and slashed the wind, as a ship's
     Weird rigging in a storm shrieks hideously.

     Within the house two voices arose in anger, a slender
         lash
     Whistling delirious rage, and the dreadful sound
     Of a thick lash booming and bruising, until it
         drowned
     The other voice in a silence of blood, 'neath the noise
         of the ash.

     Now and again
     All my body springs alive,
     And the life that is polarised in my eyes,
     That quivers between my eyes and mouth,
     Flies like a wild thing across my body,
     Leaving my eyes half-empty, and clamorous,
     Filling my still breasts with a flush and a flame,
     Gathering the soft ripples below my breasts
     Into urgent, passionate waves,
     And my soft, slumbering belly
     Quivering awake with one impulse of desire,
     Gathers itself fiercely together;
     And my docile, fluent arms
     Knotting themselves with wild strength
     To clasp what they have never clasped.
     Then I tremble, and go trembling
     Under the wild, strange tyranny of my body,
     Till it has spent itself,
     And the relentless nodality of my eyes reasserts itself,
     Till the bursten flood of life ebbs back to my eyes,
     Back from my beautiful, lonely body
     Tired and unsatisfied.

THIS is the last of all, this is the last!
     I must hold my hands, and turn my face to the fire,
     I must watch my dead days fusing together in dross,
     Shape after shape, and scene after scene from my past
     Fusing to one dead mass in the sinking fire
     Where the ash on the dying coals grows swiftly, like
         heavy moss.

     Strange he is, my son, whom I have awaited like a
         lover,
     Strange to me like a captive in a foreign country,
         haunting
     The confines and gazing out on the land where the
         wind is free;
     White and gaunt, with wistful eyes that hover
     Always on the distance, as if his soul were chaunting
     The monotonous weird of departure away from me.

     Like a strange white bird blown out of the frozen
         seas,
     Like a bird from the far north blown with a broken
         wing
     Into our sooty garden, he drags and beats
     From place to place perpetually, seeking release
     From me, from the hand of my love which creeps up,
         needing
     His happiness, whilst he in displeasure retreats.

     I must look away from him, for my faded eyes
     Like a cringing dog at his heels offend him now,
     Like a toothless hound pursuing him with my will,
     Till he chafes at my crouching persistence, and a
         sharp spark flies
     In my soul from under the sudden frown of his brow,
     As he blenches and turns away, and my heart stands
         still.

     This is the last, it will not be any more.
     All my life I have borne the burden of myself,
     All the long years of sitting in my husband's house,
     Never have I said to myself as he closed the door:
     "Now I am caught!—You are hopelessly lost, O
         Self,
     You are frightened with joy, my heart, like a
         frightened mouse."

     Three times have I offered myself, three times rejected.
     It will not be any more. No more, my son, my son!
     Never to know the glad freedom of obedience, since
         long ago
     The angel of childhood kissed me and went. I expected
     Another would take me,—and now, my son, O my son,
     I must sit awhile and wait, and never know
     The loss of myself, till death comes, who cannot fail.

     Death, in whose service is nothing of gladness, takes
         me;
     For the lips and the eyes of God are behind a veil.
     And the thought of the lipless voice of the Father
         shakes me
     With fear, and fills my eyes with the tears of desire,
     And my heart rebels with anguish as night draws
         nigher,

SEE the stars, love,
     In the water much clearer and brighter
     Than those above us, and whiter,
     Like nenuphars.

     Star-shadows shine, love,
     How many stars in your bowl?
     How many shadows in your soul,
     Only mine, love, mine?

     When I move the oars, love,
     See how the stars are tossed,
     Distorted, the brightest lost.
     —So that bright one of yours, love.

     The poor waters spill
     The stars, waters broken, forsaken.
     —The heavens are not shaken, you say, love,
     Its stars stand still.

     There, did you see
     That spark fly up at us; even
     Stars are not safe in heaven.
     —What of yours, then, love, yours?

     What then, love, if soon
     Your light be tossed over a wave?
     Will you count the darkness a grave,
     And swoon, love, swoon?

THE five old bells
     Are hurrying and eagerly calling,
     Imploring, protesting
     They know, but clamorously falling
     Into gabbling incoherence, never resting,
     Like spattering showers from a bursten sky-rocket
         dropping
     In splashes of sound, endlessly, never stopping.

     The silver moon
     That somebody has spun so high
     To settle the question, yes or no, has caught
     In the net of the night's balloon,
     And sits with a smooth bland smile up there in
         the sky
     Smiling at naught,
     Unless the winking star that keeps her company
     Makes little jests at the bells' insanity,
     As if he knew aught!

     The patient Night
     Sits indifferent, hugged in her rags,
     She neither knows nor cares
     Why the old church sobs and brags;
     The light distresses her eyes, and tears
     Her old blue cloak, as she crouches and covers her
         face,
     Smiling, perhaps, if we knew it, at the bells' loud
         clattering disgrace.

     The wise old trees
     Drop their leaves with a faint, sharp hiss of contempt,
     While a car at the end of the street goes by with a
         laugh;
     As by degrees
     The poor bells cease, and the Night is exempt,
     And the stars can chaff
     The ironic moon at their ease, while the dim old
         church
     Is peopled with shadows and sounds and ghosts that
         lurch
     In its cenotaph.

ALWAYS, sweetheart,
     Carry into your room the blossoming boughs of
         cherry,
     Almond and apple and pear diffuse with light, that
         very
     Soon strews itself on the floor; and keep the radiance
         of spring
     Fresh quivering; keep the sunny-swift March-days
         waiting
     In a little throng at your door, and admit the one
         who is plaiting
     Her hair for womanhood, and play awhile with her,
         then bid her depart.

         A come and go of March-day loves
         Through the flower-vine, trailing screen;
            A fluttering in of doves.
         Then a launch abroad of shrinking doves
         Over the waste where no hope is seen
         Of open hands:
                    Dance in and out
         Small-bosomed girls of the spring of love,
         With a bubble of laughter, and shrilly shout
         Of mirth; then the dripping of tears on your
             glove.

     I HAVE opened the window to warm my hands on the
         sill
     Where the sunlight soaks in the stone: the afternoon
     Is full of dreams, my love, the boys are all still
     In a wistful dream of Lorna Doone.

     The clink of the shunting engines is sharp and fine,
     Like savage music striking far off, and there
     On the great, uplifted blue palace, lights stir and
        shine
     Where the glass is domed in the blue, soft air.

     There lies the world, my darling, full of wonder and
         wistfulness and strange
     Recognition and greetings of half-acquaint things, as
         I greet the cloud
     Of blue palace aloft there, among misty indefinite
         dreams that range
     At the back of my life's horizon, where the dreamings
         of past lives crowd.

     Over the nearness of Norwood Hill, through the
         mellow veil
     Of the afternoon glows to me the old romance of
         David and Dora,
     With the old, sweet, soothing tears, and laughter
         that shakes the sail
     Of the ship of the soul over seas where dreamed
         dreams lure the unoceaned explorer.

     All the bygone, hushèd years
     Streaming back where the mist distils
     Into forgetfulness: soft-sailing waters where fears
     No longer shake, where the silk sail fills
     With an unfelt breeze that ebbs over the seas, where
         the storm
     Of living has passed, on and on
     Through the coloured iridescence that swims in the
         warm
     Wake of the tumult now spent and gone,
     Drifts my boat, wistfully lapsing after
     The mists of vanishing tears and the echo of laughter.

MY world is a painted fresco, where coloured shapes
     Of old, ineffectual lives linger blurred and warm;
     An endless tapestry the past has woven drapes
     The halls of my life, compelling my soul to conform.

     The surface of dreams is broken,
     The picture of the past is shaken and scattered.
     Fluent, active figures of men pass along the railway,
         and I am woken
     From the dreams that the distance flattered.

     Along the railway, active figures of men.
     They have a secret that stirs in their limbs as they
         move
     Out of the distance, nearer, commanding my dreamy
         world.

     Here in the subtle, rounded flesh
     Beats the active ecstasy.
     In the sudden lifting my eyes, it is clearer,
     The fascination of the quick, restless Creator moving
         through the mesh
     Of men, vibrating in ecstasy through the rounded
         flesh.

     Oh my boys, bending over your books,
     In you is trembling and fusing
     The creation of a new-patterned dream, dream of a
         generation:
     And I watch to see the Creator, the power that
         patterns the dream.

     The old dreams are beautiful, beloved, soft-toned,
         and sure,
     But the dream-stuff is molten and moving mysteriously,
     Alluring my eyes; for I, am I not also dream-stuff,
     Am I not quickening, diffusing myself in the pattern,
         shaping and shapen?

     Here in my class is the answer for the great yearning:
     Eyes where I can watch the swim of old dreams
         reflected on the molten metal of dreams,
     Watch the stir which is rhythmic and moves them
         all as a heart-beat moves the blood,
     Here in the swelling flesh the great activity working,
     Visible there in the change of eyes and the mobile
         features.

     Oh the great mystery and fascination of the unseen
         Shaper,
     The power of the melting, fusing Force—heat,
         light, all in one,
     Everything great and mysterious in one, swelling and
         shaping the dream in the flesh,
     As it swells and shapes a bud into blossom.

     Oh the terrible ecstasy of the consciousness that I
         am life!
     Oh the miracle of the whole, the widespread, labouring
         concentration
     Swelling mankind like one bud to bring forth the
         fruit of a dream,
     Oh the terror of lifting the innermost I out of the
         sweep of the impulse of life,
     And watching the great Thing labouring through the
         whole round flesh of the world;
     And striving to catch a glimpse of the shape of the
         coming dream,
     As it quickens within the labouring, white-hot metal,
     Catch the scent and the colour of the coming dream,
     Then to fall back exhausted into the unconscious,
         molten life!

YESTERDAY the fields were only grey with scattered
        snow,
     And now the longest grass-leaves hardly emerge;
     Yet her deep footsteps mark the snow, and go
     On towards the pines at the hills' white verge.

     I cannot see her, since the mist's white scarf
     Obscures the dark wood and the dull orange sky;
     But she's waiting, I know, impatient and cold, half
     Sobs struggling into her frosty sigh.

     Why does she come so promptly, when she must
        know
     That she's only the nearer to the inevitable farewell;
     The hill is steep, on the snow my steps are slow—
     Why does she come, when she knows what I have to
        tell?

PATIENCE, little Heart.
     One day a heavy, June-hot woman
     Will enter and shut the door to stay.

     And when your stifling heart would summon
     Cool, lonely night, her roused breasts will keep the
          night at bay,
     Sitting in your room like two tiger-lilies
     Flaming on after sunset,
     Destroying the cool, lonely night with the glow of
          their hot twilight;
     There in the morning, still, while the fierce strange
          scent comes yet
     Stronger, hot and red; till you thirst for the
          daffodillies
     With an anguished, husky thirst that you cannot
          assuage,
     When the daffodillies are dead, and a woman of the
          dog-days holds you in gage.
     Patience, little Heart.

WHEN the bare feet of the baby beat across the grass
     The little white feet nod like white flowers in the
         wind,
     They poise and run like ripples lapping across the
         water;
     And the sight of their white play among the grass
     Is like a little robin's song, winsome,
     Or as two white butterflies settle in the cup of one
         flower
     For a moment, then away with a flutter of wings.

     I long for the baby to wander hither to me
     Like a wind-shadow wandering over the water,
     So that she can stand on my knee
     With her little bare feet in my hands,
     Cool like syringa buds,
     Firm and silken like pink young peony flowers.

IT is stormy, and raindrops cling like silver bees to
          the pane,
     The thin sycamores in the playground are swinging
          with flattened leaves;
     The heads of the boys move dimly through a yellow
          gloom that stains
     The class; over them all the dark net of my discipline
          weaves.

     It is no good, dear, gentleness and forbearance, I
          endured too long.
     I have pushed my hands in the dark soil, under the
          flower of my soul
     And the gentle leaves, and have felt where the roots
          are strong
     Fixed in the darkness, grappling for the deep soil's
          little control.

     And there is the dark, my darling, where the roots
          are entangled and fight
     Each one for its hold on the oblivious darkness, I
          know that there
     In the night where we first have being, before we rise
          on the light,
     We are not brothers, my darling, we fight and we
          do not spare.

     And in the original dark the roots cannot keep,
          cannot know
     Any communion whatever, but they bind themselves
          on to the dark,
     And drawing the darkness together, crush from it a
          twilight, a slow
     Burning that breaks at last into leaves and a flower's
          bright spark.

     I came to the boys with love, my dear, but they
          turned on me;
     I came with gentleness, with my heart 'twixt my
          hands like a bowl,
     Like a loving-cup, like a grail, but they spilt it
          triumphantly
     And tried to break the vessel, and to violate my
          soul.

     But what have I to do with the boys, deep down in
          my soul, my love?
     I throw from out of the darkness my self like a flower
          into sight,
     Like a flower from out of the night-time, I lift my
          face, and those
     Who will may warm their hands at me, comfort this
          night.

     But whosoever would pluck apart my flowering shall
          burn their hands,
     So flowers are tender folk, and roots can only hide,
     Yet my flowerings of love are a fire, and the scarlet
          brands
     Of my love are roses to look at, but flames to chide.

     But comfort me, my love, now the fires are low,
     Now I am broken to earth like a winter destroyed,
          and all
     Myself but a knowledge of roots, of roots in the dark
          that throw
     A net on the undersoil, which lies passive beneath
          their thrall.

     But comfort me, for henceforth my love is yours
          alone,
     To you alone will I offer the bowl, to you will I give
     My essence only, but love me, and I will atone
     To you for my general loving, atone as long as I live.

     A FAINT, sickening scent of irises
     Persists all morning. Here in a jar on the table
     A fine proud spike of purple irises
     Rising above the class-room litter, makes me unable
     To see the class's lifted and bended faces
     Save in a broken pattern, amid purple and gold and
         sable.

     I can smell the gorgeous bog-end, in its breathless
     Dazzle of may-blobs, when the marigold glare overcast
          you
     With fire on your cheeks and your brow and your
         chin as you dipped
     Your face in the marigold bunch, to touch and contrast
         you,
     Your own dark mouth with the bridal faint lady-smocks,
     Dissolved on the golden sorcery you should not
         outlast.

     You amid the bog-end's yellow incantation,
     You sitting in the cowslips of the meadow above,
     Me, your shadow on the bog-flame, flowery may-blobs,
     Me full length in the cowslips, muttering you love;
     You, your soul like a lady-smock, lost, evanescent,
     You with your face all rich, like the sheen of a
         dove.

     You are always asking, do I remember, remember
     The butter-cup bog-end where the flowers rose up
     And kindled you over deep with a cast of gold?
     You ask again, do the healing days close up
     The open darkness which then drew us in,
     The dark which then drank up our brimming cup.

     You upon the dry, dead beech-leaves, in the fire of
         night
     Burnt like a sacrifice; you invisible;
     Only the fire of darkness, and the scent of you!
     —And yes, thank God, it still is possible
     The healing days shall close the darkness up
     Wherein we fainted like a smoke or dew.

     Like vapour, dew, or poison. Now, thank God,
     The fire of night is gone, and your face is ash
     Indistinguishable on the grey, chill day;
     The night has burnt us out, at last the good
     Dark fire burns on untroubled, without clash
     Of you upon the dead leaves saying me Yea.

AH, my darling, when over the purple horizon shall
         loom
     The shrouded mother of a new idea, men hide their
         faces,
     Cry out and fend her off, as she seeks her procreant
         groom,
     Wounding themselves against her, denying her
         fecund embraces.