style="font-size:15px;"> SAN GAUDENZIO
Wedlock
I COME, my little one, closer up against me, Creep right up, with your round head pushed in my breast. How I love all of you! Do you feel me wrap you Up with myself and my warmth, like a flame round the wick? And how I am not at all, except a flame that mounts off you. Where I touch you, I flame into being;—but is it me, or you? That round head pushed in my chest, like a nut in its socket, And I the swift bracts that sheathe it: those breasts, those thighs and knees, Those shoulders so warm and smooth: I feel that I Am a sunlight upon them, that shines them into being. But how lovely to be you! Creep closer in, that I am more. I spread over you! How lovely, your round head, your arms, Your breasts, your knees and feet! I feel that we Are a bonfire of oneness, me flame flung leaping round you, You the core of the fire, crept into me. II AND oh, my little one, you whom I enfold, How quaveringly I depend on you, to keep me alive, Like a flame on a wick! I, the man who enfolds you and holds you close, How my soul cleaves to your bosom as I clasp you, The very quick of my being! Suppose you didn't want me! I should sink down Like a light that has no sustenance And sinks low. Cherish me, my tiny one, cherish me who enfold you. Nourish me, and endue me, I am only of you, I am your issue. How full and big like a robust, happy flame When I enfold you, and you creep into me, And my life is fierce at its quick Where it comes off you! III MY little one, my big one, My bird, my brown sparrow in my breast. My squirrel clutching in to me; My pigeon, my little one, so warm So close, breathing so still. My little one, my big one, I, who am so fierce and strong, enfolding you, If you start away from my breast, and leave me, How suddenly I shall go down into nothing Like a flame that falls of a sudden. And you will be before me, tall and towering, And I shall be wavering uncertain Like a sunken flame that grasps for support. IV BUT now I am full and strong and certain With you there firm at the core of me Keeping me. How sure I feel, how warm and strong and happy For the future! How sure the future is within me; I am like a seed with a perfect flower enclosed. I wonder what it will be, What will come forth of us. What flower, my love? No matter, I am so happy, I feel like a firm, rich, healthy root, Rejoicing in what is to come. How I depend on you utterly My little one, my big one! How everything that will be, will not be of me, Nor of either of us, But of both of us. V AND think, there will something come forth from us. We two, folded so small together, There will something come forth from us. Children, acts, utterance Perhaps only happiness. Perhaps only happiness will come forth from us. Old sorrow, and new happiness. Only that one newness. But that is all I want. And I am sure of that. We are sure of that. VI AND yet all the while you are you, you are not me. And I am I, I am never you. How awfully distinct and far off from each other's being we are! Yet I am glad. I am so glad there is always you beyond my scope, Something that stands over, Something I shall never be, That I shall always wonder over, and wait for, Look for like the breath of life as long as I live, Still waiting for you, however old you are, and I am, I shall always wonder over you, and look for you. And you will always be with me. I shall never cease to be filled with newness, Having you near me.
History
THE listless beauty of the hour
When snow fell on the apple trees
And the wood-ash gathered in the fire
And we faced our first miseries.
Then the sweeping sunshine of noon
When the mountains like chariot cars
Were ranked to blue battle—and you and I
Counted our scars.
And then in a strange, grey hour
We lay mouth to mouth, with your face
Under mine like a star on the lake,
And I covered the earth, and all space.
The silent, drifting hours
Of morn after morn
And night drifting up to the night
Yet no pathway worn.
Your life, and mine, my love
Passing on and on, the hate
Fusing closer and closer with love
Till at length they mate.
THE CEARNE
SONG OF A MAN WHO HAS COME THROUGH NOT I, not I, but the wind that blows through me! A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time. If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me! If only I am sensitive, subtle, oh, delicate, a winged gift! If only, most lovely of all, I yield myself and am borrowed By the fine, fine wind that takes its course through the chaos of the world Like a fine, an exquisite chisel, a wedge-blade inserted; If only I am keen and hard like the sheer tip of a wedge Driven by invisible blows, The rock will split, we shall come at the wonder, we shall find the Hesperides. Oh, for the wonder that bubbles into my soul, I would be a good fountain, a good well-head, Would blur no whisper, spoil no expression. What is the knocking? What is the knocking at the door in the night? It is somebody wants to do us harm. No, no, it is the three strange angels. Admit them, admit them.
One Woman to All Women
I DON'T care whether I am beautiful to you
You other women.
Nothing of me that you see is my own;
A man balances, bone unto bone
Balances, everything thrown
In the scale, you other women.
You may look and say to yourselves, I do
Not show like the rest.
My face may not please you, nor my stature; yet
if you knew
How happy I am, how my heart in the wind rings
true
Like a bell that is chiming, each stroke as a stroke
falls due,
You other women:
You would draw your mirror towards you, you
would wish
To be different.
There's the beauty you cannot see, myself and
