a bale-fire mounting, mounting up in me.'Tis not of me, bunny.
It was you engendered it,
with that fine, demoniacal spark
you jetted off your eye at me.
I did not want it, this furnace, this draught-maddened fire which mounts up my arms making them swell with turgid, ungovernable strength. 'Twas not I that wished it, that my fingers should turn into these flames avid and terrible that they are at this moment. It must have been your inbreathing, gaping desire that drew this red gush in me; I must be reciprocating your vacuous, hideous passion. It must be the want in you that has drawn this terrible draught of white fire up my veins as up a chimney. It must be you who desire this intermingling of the black and monstrous fingers of Moloch in the blood-jets of your throat. Come, you shall have your desire, since already I am implicated with you in your strange lust.
Paradise Re-entered
THROUGH the strait gate of passion,
Between the bickering fire
Where flames of fierce love tremble
On the body of fierce desire:
To the intoxication,
The mind, fused down like a bead,
Flees in its agitation
The flames' stiff speed:
At last to calm incandescence,
Burned clean by remorseless hate,
Now, at the day's renascence
We approach the gate.
Now, from the darkened spaces
Of fear, and of frightened faces,
Death, in our awful embraces
Approached and passed by;
We near the flame-burnt porches
Where the brands of the angels, like torches
Whirl,—in these perilous marches
Pausing to sigh;
We look back on the withering roses,
The stars, in their sun-dimmed closes,
Where 'twas given us to repose us
Sure on our sanctity;
Beautiful, candid lovers,
Burnt out of our earthy covers,
We might have nestled like plovers
In the fields of eternity.
There, sure in sinless being,
All-seen, and then all-seeing,
In us life unto death agreeing,
We might have lain.
But we storm the angel-guarded
Gates of the long-discarded,
Garden, which God has hoarded
Against our pain.
The Lord of Hosts, and the Devil
Are left on Eternity's level
Field, and as victors we travel
To Eden home.
Back beyond good and evil
Return we. Eve dishevel
Your hair for the bliss-drenched revel
On our primal loam.
Spring Morning
AH, through the open door
Is there an almond tree
Aflame with blossom!
—Let us fight no more.
Among the pink and blue
Of the sky and the almond flowers
A sparrow flutters.
—We have come through,
It is really spring!—See,
When he thinks himself alone
How he bullies the flowers.
—Ah, you and me
How happy we'll be!—See him
He clouts the tufts of flowers
In his impudence.
—But, did you dream
It would be so bitter? Never mind
It is finished, the spring is here.
And we're going to be summer-happy
And summer-kind.
We have died, we have slain and been slain,
We are not our old selves any more.
I feel new and eager
To start again.
It is gorgeous to live and forget.
And to feel quite new.
See the bird in the flowers?—he's making
A rare to-do!
He thinks the whole blue sky
Is much less than the bit of blue egg
He's got in his nest—we'll be happy
You and I, I and you.
With nothing to fight any more—
In each other, at least.
See, how gorgeous the world is
Outside the door!
