11 pp V ■ r \ K« *^ *-=> V> 'V">k. bray, L ^ o \^s m WHYM CHOW, FLAME OF LOVE. Of 27 copies, No. 21, rrin*B=Sk*SSMHHk1 IWHYM CHOW FLAME OF LOVE ill '1 BY MICHAEL FIELD. HH « Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold.» PRIVATELY PRINTED AT THE ERAONY PRESS, THE BROOK, HAMMERSMITH, LONDON,W. M.CM.XIV. * CONTENTS. I. II. iii. i| iv. m v. VI. VII. VIII. ■ IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. XIV. XV. XVI. XVII. XVIII. XIX. XX. XXI. XX11. XXIII. XXIV. XXV. XXVI. XXVII. XXVIIL XXIX. A.A.A.. / Requiescat. / / / Introit. t t t * «Crowned with wine^steeped Daphne/bough» • / / «0 Dionysus, at thy feet» / / Trinity. I I I I I «What is the other name of Iove?» «It is so old and deep a thing» / Out of the East. / / > * «My loved One is away from me» Semper Jam. / / I j Dei Dono. / / / / / Absence. / / / / / My Cup. / / / / / Fur for Mandarins. / / / «0 Now, Now» II * * «Thou could'st not bear» / / Created. I / / v / In Extremis. / / / / «0 wild Bacchic Creature» / / ((Doomed little wanderer,)) / / Adveni, Creator Spiritus! / • ((Sleeping together: Sleep,» / / Liberal Love. / / / / «Loved Confessionals there are» / (d want you, little Love,» / / ((When others are about me» / «Full of the passions nurtured in the wild» / / / • / «When at the Door of Death,» / «0 Chow, the Peace of her I love» / «Ask, and it shall be given thee» / 9 10 12 H 15 16 ■ 20 22 24 26 27 28 29 30 32 33 35 36 38 42 46 47 50 53 55 56 57 58 i&» BM % I. REQyiESCAT. fc^^M CALL along the Halls of Suffering Hark! Down each aisle reverber/ ated cries Out of deep wounds, out of each fiery spring Of nerve, or piteous anguish of surprise. And I must traverse these grand vaults to hear The patter of thy feet, my little Chow, Driven soft of frenzy on and on—the drear And winter bee/note at thy stricken brow. Loud Halls, O Hades of the living! On!... What, are the swarming little cries not heard? What, are the lit bright feet for ever gone Or yet to swifter orbit they were spurred ? If I should wander on till Time had close Thee, with thy shuffled paws, I should not find: No chasm, nor any heinous shadow knows Thy haunt; nor may I fear thee left behind. Forth, Forth! Away! He is not of these Halls— No motion of him there, Whym Chow no sound: His ruby head shall never strike their walls, And nowhere by a cry shall he be found. b 9 te^a II. INTROIT. TERROR laid on all The pulsing air, O heart That riseth into waves that can/ not fall! One comes, not to depart! What is it makes a tunnel of my hall? Why can no echoes start? Who cometh like the snow pushed toward a land? Who cometh like the snow pushed toward a land? What can the strange power be? Not the whole mountain/frame of earth, nor band Of the cold/swaying sea, Nor yet the ages under Time's Command, Gray in weird strength as he— Not sky beyond the range of any star, Not sky beyond the range of any star— Nor all these fearful things In unison like to this Presence are. Oh, but the bosom clings To breath, the eyes to light, while from afar, As come almighty Kings, Our dead comes back again, the dead, our dead. The dead comes back again, the dead, our dead, Brought through the passage in! O Wonderment, extremity of dread! No child, nay, none of kin, No sovereign and no warrior: but instead Of these, the awe they win, O Chow, my little Love, thou art come home. O Chow, my little Love, thou art come home. No creature in more state Dead to the haunts of life hath ever come. And little Love, the great, And mighty Power, nay, mightier than the dome Beyond all stars, or than Time's hoariest date, Or sea or the world's rock hath brought thee home. 11 If jfrlll. ROWNED with wine/steepec Daphne/bough, Strewment of the black, Sproutless ivy in thy frenzy trod, Wine/steeped hellebore 'Neath thy ebon chin, Thy bright corse walled in On thy coffin/floor; And the wine of God Making ruddy track On thy side, thy blood upon thy brow! By those elements life/red, By the blood, the wine, O beloved, our Want, our hidden Soul, Be our daemon, be Guardian/angel near To the cruel sphere Of our destiny, As its changes roll Genius half/divine, Dear Companion, blessed as are the dead. Not in full/furred loveliness, When love's shining aid Came from brilliant eyes and glorious face- Now we may not touch Full/furred beauty, grand As lions' ruby/tanned, 12 Nay, be with us such As by holiest grace Spirits have been made Wayfarer with men, fired through to bless! *3 rtitf&afiHlHHaii DIONYSUS, at thy feet The beauteous reveller, our joy, J we lay— Our Bacchic Cub, the dear tamed animal, So often touched with ivy/coronal, Who, breathing day As from a mountain, found thy worship sweet. O god, o vine, on his dead side Stain of thy grape: above his corse we drink In sacrament to thy divinest folly That made all creatures of bright revel holy, Chose them to link With god and maenads in one rapture wide. He loved thy torch of vivid flame, He loved the breath of life, the rush, the glance Of eyes from inmost happiness, and splendid His glow as on his joyance he attended With countenance Of merchant over jewels of deep fame. Receive him, tragic god of tendrilled fire— Our sweetest, let us rove and rove with him. We pledged him in thy grape. Leave us not lonely! But bring him and thy wine/cup with thee only— Our Chow, our Whym, And thirst should end, and passion bind desire. H j^V. TRINITY. ^^M^jfll DID not love him for myself alone: I loved him that he loved my dearest love. O God, no blasphemy It is to feel we loved in trinity, To tell Thee that I loved him as Thy Dove Is loved, and is Thy own, That comforted the moan Of Thy Beloved, when earth could give no balm And in Thy Presence makes His tenderest calm. So I possess this creature of Love's flame, So loving what I love he lives from me; Not white, a thing of fire, Of seraph/plumed limbs and one desire, That is my heart's own, and shall ever be: An animal—with aim Thy Dove avers the same.... O symbol of our perfect union, strange Unconscious Bearer of Love's interchange. l^ MM Iii *VL • HAT is the other name of Love ? Has Love another name? Yea, one that, when he came To his Creator's feet above, Met his lone ear and thrilled His grievous want, and filled The chamber of his birth with new live fire. ((Response, my Answer» was God's cry. O gift of joy to hear The Godhead's welcome clear. As heart to heart the vast Desires were gathered fast— Love as the source of Love, Love the Reply. Response! O little Love, O little Chow! O Answer! What is Love's most answering bliss? What is Love's happiness alert but this To welcome ? And thy rage of welcome how Should words tell dim—the bound, The dances round and round, As if the sun had come down carrying love Instead of light, with all his rays and power, With the wild spinning of his heat above, And in thy body had his hour Of cabriole and circle on the ground! What beating of fine, little feet! 16 •s?. What slouch of ears like banners drooped To the great Victor all the soul would greet! Thy tail—the thyrse of flame that Delphi knew, Thy dance—such dance as on Cithaeron tossed! Thy cries as circling sea/birds mew; Thy stretched paws the defiance of all fear, With the adored in sight and near To touch and smell—the fine nose stooped In midst of ecstacy to prove it sure, Not a vain presence in its visit lost: Athwart thine eyes the fierceness of a gem, That drowns its flashes and then rescues them, Casting on lucent gold about them set Magnificence still with doom's flooding wet— Eyes that no separation could enure To loss of their one love, their utter fate. O Chow, the glory and the gold/furred state That smote beyond the strength of any verse, And all its pride in gold, even to rehearse— The state that surged around a daily chance, If thy Beloved should enter: in thy Dance A worship; in thy light, a universe. 17 , T is so old and deep a thing The being fond of animals—so far It goes back to when earth was first beginning, Lay under forests dark as storm/clouds are, Or from its ice menaced frail breath and motion Of living creatures. Then, by many an ocean, Lost to our planet now, man followed beast As foe; and out of hatred came a love For breath that feebly struggled as man's breath, y 50 so ™ For loneliness of soul that could at least Be faithful to the Voice of one above, And listen for it through the woods till death, And listen for it through the icy flaw; Yea, come at last to worship at the door Where dwelt the Voice, and at its human hearth Find the one end to a world's trackless path. God in His spaces overhead Seeks not the powers and angels for His heart: From these in passion ever is He parted, And with our mortal ignorance hath part. Our wild, divining simpleness entrances, And in the solace of our upward glances The truth of His own mystery prevails. So is it when the creatures of the Earth What was and shall be in ourselves reveal From eyes that pierce us not; where love avails 18 To grasp what apprehension in its dearth Can never judge. Oh, as our God, to feel A being from below reach where in vain Those of a race more equal scarce attain: In sacred revelation to be caught By blessed eyes even yet with chaos fraught! ■fiffTVffTiH J r h VIII. OUT OF THE EAST. ASPER and jacinth, amber and fine gold, The topaz, ruby, the fire/opal, grey And lucent agate covered thee with glory, O Eastern Prince from fuming China hoary, That on thy orient rug celestial lay, Thy coat a web of treasure manifold! And from thy glinted eye what lust of eye, What joy in having joy to thy desire, What potency out of thy gold to fashion Thy slaves to aptness for each regal passion, What ambush and what ease of rampant fire! What somnolence of ancient cruelty! And what endowment of what frenzied joy, That our cold flesh of the Hesperides Can reach not,... eyes and teeth and feet all blended In pomp of dithyramb that only ended By sleep, through which the god remitting frees His votary from fire/flames that destroy. Yet in thee such a bowing/down to doom: Docile and proud with humbleness a spell, Thy talisman of universal splendour— That with necessity by still surrender Thou wouldst be level whatsoe'er befell, Nor by defeated light establish gloom. 20 ■hrtrtM mm* And mysteries, old mysteries like stars Rose in thy spread gaze, and thy thought was filled With worship, with perpetual adoration; Thy very breath of being an oblation; Infinitude a faith life never stilled, The lustier for its chains, its wrongs and jars. O Orient Prince, thou Asian Bacchant, dear To Eleutherius, how thou knewest love!— Thy Mistress thy hot self thou couldst not render; Yea, with indifference, a strain untender, She being thy very self, thou would'st not move Even to caress her, for caress too near. Thou would'st not break thy trance save at the hour Of welcome: then the glories of thy race, Then dance and sovereign courtesy, elation As thou would'st heap the substance of a nation At feet that had the ritual of thy face, And all thy gems in flash, thy gold in shower. 21 * IX. Y loved One is away from me / Mm^C ): Whom thou dost love. O Chow, si >s*l That with my outward eyes I may not see Thy gaze that fathomed how Intent were thy furred ears with such emotion, As in a shell is straining for the ocean! My loved One is away from me; I may not turn to find, Chow, in thy senses the infinity That in my senses pined For her we loved in absence and together, My feet, thine eager paws, questioning whether The loved One would come back to us Or now, or soon, or late. Oh, in our vigil to be solaced thus, By the unbounded pressure of one yearning Vaster than we, no pause in it, no turning! Our loved One was away from each: Your eyes burnt signals, mine Sprang the same flambeaux the same aid to reach Of Guardian Love divine— That it would give us back our sole possession, For whom our thoughts, breath, hearts kept holy cession. 22 tfltofcMM H Our loved One was away from you— O Chow, the sighs, our sighs! And what I murmured you would listen to With your far/open eyes, Raised in the anguish of a want immortal... Lo, than didst sweep as hawk against the portal! For, lo, our loved One surely came, Lo, she was at the door! Your eyes demanded Yes, in running flame; Mine gave them Yes—no more: And we had reached our vigil's end in gladness Of so great ease from terror it seemed madness. My loved One is away from me. O Chow, no more, we twain My lovely fellow/lover, hear and see And breathe for her again! You ever have your Love...yet do not leave me, Nor in my mortal wake of love bereave me! My loved One is away—my cry! Be at my side, unseen, Alert, like strange Anubis, toward the sky, As you so oft have been. O Chow, my little Love, you watch above her; Watch still beside me, be with me her lover! 23 r i w I X. SEMPER JAM. NE attitude, the only one That never changes, we must keep When the warm flux of life is gone, One attitude, but one, that sleep Of its own self and loneliness Doth with a sovereign stamp impress, The terror of one endless pose.— O vivid, little Chow, O Rose Of circling life, erected head, And limbs of ever/lambent red, That would not wait a jot for aught The impulse of their motion sought; Impatience beautiful, and tart— Yea, with desire's exceeding smart... Now limbs stretched forth and flank stretched slim, Down from thy ruff's deep mantling rim, Thy forehead plain in rest, thine eye Glinted aslant and lazily... Just as so often I have seen Thee slumbering with a lion's mien. Long watched I then, but never stayed Thus on thy sleep, as if delayed Before a state/duration held Fast, and in sculptured presence spelled. Not life—with this unthought/of woe, We still must see it ever so... 24 MtftU "llfH The terror—it is life, and yet A form we never may forget; And never may its contours move, Nor its closed posture answer love. ff XL DEI DONO. HY beauty—that of action born, Of drama and the thyrse tossed higher; An apparition of exceeding fire, Swept hither, thither among men, in scorn As comet is to fool and craven, dire. Beauty—by Asian Bromius shed On mane and banneret of fur, On fretted eyes, over undompted head; Coat of high stranS as mountain juniper; And clouded radiance only gods confer. Yet fine thou wert as bliss can make The devotee: nostrils light/stirred, In touch as perfect as a drinking bird; Thy feet—in which an eager pulse would shake To music by the Star of Morning heard. And freshness! Even as in the hand A rose of the first dew will bloom— Such freshness of thyself, such sturdy room For being elate thou didst of right command That in red flame thou didst affront all gloom. 26 $f XII. ABSENCE. H1^,B OE of thy little face behind the pane! Woe of thy lovely, golden face! Its music in the discord of a strain— Parting, ay parting with its only love: Thine eyes the jangle of wild beams, Mid night they vainly would displace, Riot wildest fears, and wilder dreams! Woe for thy little face left so forlorn! Woe of its weft and woof untwined, The stuff of all its gold aimless and torn, Dropping, ay dropping from its loom away! All its devotion unconfined: Distress of thy gold face—ah, well/a/day I Woe for thy little face in solitude, Woe of its lost, unfolded looks!— The wonder, shattered by disquietude... Clearly, ay, clearly sudden, the one thing, Beyond what any wonder brooks, That love was gone, was gone a'wandering 1 Past all the sorrow of that severance now, Past, and for evermore forgot; Perfect the music; seamless, little Chow, Woven, enwoven thy gold threads of life; Unshepherded, unsheltered not Thy love/looks with a wilderness at strife! 27 A ■gfi.---i.giir % XIII. MY CUP. HOW, thou hast drunk the bittei cup— Love unto death, That makes love free and lifts it up To heaven and its own breath: So God gave death To His Beloved, as we Gave it to thee. Oh, 'twas a sacramental Cup— Death given for Love! We bade thy little spirit sup With First and Last above, When of our love We made thee free Eternally. %XIV. FUR FOR MANDARINS. IGER and the tiger/lilly, Flower of broom and flower of gilly; Gems of every mine and valley That have gold and red to rally Mists of earth and crystals icy; All the fume in coverts spicy Where the tiger's furnace cruel Draweth victims as to fuel; Or where sunset strikes its splendour On a stack of oat/plumes slender; Where the marigold scowls lusty, Though its coat be dun and dusty: Where all haunt of colour burneth With such glow as never turneth From its tropic—thou art golden, And in state and place beholden. 29 i :. J^F AV. NOW, Now! Ever like the sun, the South Sparkling sun that floods us from the South— Leaving in our brain no drouth For a future, no regret Backward, bidding us forget; State of bliss that keenly yearns On the mortal dust it burns At its whole eternal heart, Whence free light and motion start; Joy above immediate pain, Where no changes wax or wane. O Now, Now! Moment everlasting, thrill Of Life's immortality, a thrill Never slaked and sweeter still When we live as God hath breath, Safe beyond those dreams of death— What is gone and what shall come, Mere annihilation's sum! Readiness, sweet Hamlet—true! ((Readiness is alb. Adieu To aught else, if we would be Present in life's mystery. 3° -m~.esm.~et. msma O Now, Now! Little Love, God's Moment, bright, Ever with us, yearning bright In thine every leap of light, In thy spring of instant glance, Clear from ebb of circumstance; Animate from birth to birth Of Life's Moment new on earth, Thou art here as sparkling sun In thy presence, brightest One. .**»• ■I. it XVI. §/' HOU couldst not bear to face the Sea, Nor would'st thou ever be Where the mound/billows slash upon the stones; Nay, but with little moans, The fox/whelp's bark, so wild was thy distress, Spread/eagled up the sea/banks, thou would'st press. O little cry I shall for ever hear 1 O altercation drear: Thou could'st not stay before the presence rude Of gross infinitude, But straining back to genial earth would'st flee Where warm in hearts is sunk infinity. 32 «**. % XVII. CREATED. |v%J LONG a hill, among the hills, Thou hast burnt over at my side In air of seraph/flight that fills To amplitude the valleys wide— We pace on in liberty. Thou art dead, who might not be On these living uplands free, Nor thy sturdy trot unbound On this elemental ground: But fast in leash thou didst abide. Oh, of thy bond, Whym Chow, it came, That into thee a soul was breathed; And as a brazier holds a flame Close of rare incense in it sheathed, Thou wert held in capture fraught With sweet sacrifice—thy thought Never from our presence sought; And thy love, in servitude To thy loved one's being, rued No loss that sealed thee with her name. For all that is created bears A limit scarcely to be borne, Till out of it, though unawares, A Spirit of new life is drawn: So thy love's unfettered soul Deathless through thy body stole, « 33 r Levying on thy days its toll Of subjection—So to/day Dead, thou takest living way, And with my soul its treedom shares. fl 34 mm* t XVIII. IN EXTREMIS. I HEN thouwert lying dead, Chow, I was at the poles J Of passion where its world most sharp/ ly, swiftly rolls, In midst of ice, of icebergs riftless and of snow. I spoke to thee with voice that panted fast and slow Against the force I breathed of that extremest cold, While at my heart quick love round its own being rolled. 35 ,!x JfcXIX. I WILD Bacchic Creature, shall we grieve That the God of Frenzy did not leave Thy last days unheightened and forlorn? Shall we,as the terror/stricken, mourn That on thee the very God descended, And with sickness exultation blended? Rich upon thy fur the richest fire Glowed as from his mother's heaven/struck pyre: And the motions of his mighty march Through the mountain/gorge, the city's arch, And lion/shaken plain was in the sway, Royal as a procession, of the way Thou didst press thy feet. And doom was spun In the circles, finished one by one, Of thy patient frenzy, Oh, the swing!— As when horses, destined to their ring, Slow and powerful thresh the autumn grain, Dragging with their feet against the strain, Bending round the pole, and nobly held By the weary rhythm, as music/spelled As are stars, though music be unheard. Oh, thy revolution never stirred, Wondrous circles of inveterate woe, Woven by stars, by heroes long ago, Drawn through frenzy of a god to song. Little Chow, this greatness did belong To thy end that, ivy/leaves among, 36 Thou didst feel the far c^fol of delight On the verges of absorbing madness. Seized of fate's dire rhythm, yet with no sadness, Thou among the stems of rose/thorn rushed, Or the well/loved ivy/leaflets brushed, Or the air—as if from Temple lifted In high vale and from its columns drifted— Came upon thy nostrils, till a sleep Fell, the last of doom, and on the steep Of Cithaeron thou wert laid in death... Maiming sleep of frenzy and free breath. 37 J|p XX. OOMED little wanderer, doomed to move As Lion or Bear in heaven above O little star, our woe!... Thou wert not of a god en/starred, When on thee fell that fortune hard To wander here as in the sky Those shining Beasts that no more die, But in constellation spin. Thou wert mortal to begin An endless movement so! Thy little ruby head, soft, blind — What agony when we entwined Our arms and fain would hold thee far From thy destiny of Star! Quiet, sweet, a moment's space: Thou would'st rest from charmed pace:... As thou saidst No, No! Gently then thou would'st pursue Still thy Course, soft breaking through Our protection from the great Doom of thy unearthy fate; Courteous, placant, out of noose, Pitying love had thrown, let loose, Weary, little, ruby head, Feet of gold with steps of lead— Thou didst pass along the ground As a star that rideth round 38 On its circles in the sky; Yet indeed thou had'st to die— Yea, and stumbled in the stress Of persisting weariness. 39 'XXI. ADVENI, CREATOR SPIRITUS! Y arms, my arms are void: Nothing created touches their embrace; The substance of embrace hath been des/ troyed; What it clings round, what gives it place— As shell around the ruddy chestnut takes A mould and station, the red fruit forsakes. My ears, my ears are still: Not deaf of their own selves, but from without As flower/cup that the bees were wont to fill With boomings, stir with their warm rout The haunt to generation, dust With love's gold—So my ears, their life out/ thrust. Mine eyes, mine eyes are blank: What in the light could give them living shape And filled their vision with inducement frank To see and watch beyond escape Is gone; and with indifference light flows by, Nothing across it fashioned steadily. My heart, my heart-i-ah no! Core of my love there art thou ever hard— There clasped, there heard, there seen in con/ stant glow, 40 Brass In compass of its world enstarred; Nothing of sense there vacant seeks its aim: so Touch, hearing, sight responsive to their name. O God, O God, O might Of Life Creative, let me hold again The ruddy form my arms would close on tight, Their cynosure my eyes attain; Tingle my ears with every sound they loved; Oh, re/embody! Be thy Spirit proved. Yea, give, O give once more These things of sense their everlasting dream, Strong as the semblance that on earth they wore! The very touch, the very beam To hold the loved One—on the ear his voice And breath. Oh, make each waste place to rejoice! f 41 i|i jfrxxii. LEEPING together: Sleep, The lull of thy breath on the air That held the lull of our breath there; Or movements in that former deep Of night that was before the world— [ovements of thy form re/curled, On a sigh, a pearl in seas Shut down dark in mysteries; Or a snuffling by the bed Of thy fair/created head; All of Genesis from dense Covert gloom, till, issuing thence, Motion, sigh of heart, caress Came through sable void to bless. Eating together: food, Rest of continuance! Like a Song To feel it made us blithe and strong! To see thee greet with us the good Of such nurture as could hold Thee so eager, bright and bold, We with all our deeds and dreams ' Re/illumed, as were the gleams Of thy savouring body, till Complement of power did fill Thee and us, that side by side We in newness might abide. Breathing together: breath, The friendship of all things with us, The means by which just then and thus What word the sun in sunshine saith We could hear and welcome it, By our mingled eyes sunlit. And of breath we shared the breeze, Listened to the mammering trees, Elf/possessed to make such sound; Or against the river's bound With thrilled trepidation ran. Yea, of breath, the breath of man And of beast we knew the spell' Of our bodies, relished well. Loving together, love, The ilame that even in locked/up sleep Had place, as in the rock, closed deep, Is set the spark with rock above; That in our morning/open eyes Took on flash of full replies— From the couch, where thou had'st slept, To our bed unwavering leapt, And from us in thee would light All the sanctuaries of sight: Flame that, did we only eat, Made a sacrifice of meat, Something eaten from the fire That had brought a god down nigher: Flame that while we breathed made air 43 ill I As itself a warmth and fair Shining through us of content- Life with sacred passion blent. Joying together: joy, The call to us of ivy, pine And a Voice of One divine Who kindled the wild creatures coy Even as he kindled women, men Into choruses and then Set them to life's dance of praise, Rhythmic over devious ways; Who with flambeaux hung bright spears, Lifted panthers' tingling ears, Taught the bliss that must express Unity of blessedness When a god to mortal things Their delight for worship brings. Grieving together—No! Scarce any sorrow save the dull Shades that will mar things beautiful, The cloud upon day's promised glow, The walk along the hills denied.-.. We no longer at thy side!— That was absence, deathly space, Holding not the Loved One's face, Sorrow at Creation's blank While drear distance slowly sank Coffin/timbers in each heart: Absence; oh, we grieved apart. Now that thou art dead we meet Still together in the sweet Company of close/drawn breath, If we banish grief from death. 45 r —*~ ■V XXIII. LIBERAL LOVE. HY Love... for thy own self thou had'st demand; But gave of love as Kings give of their grace Out of the favour found before their face; O royal creature, from whose heart was banned All that in other love craves or makes store For its own hunger. As pure element Thy love went out toward its election, blent With no self/gain as man's is evermore. Oh, when a man loves with demand he comes- There is the war of wants and of desires: Thy love was as the inner, earliest fires, No fathom/line of covetousness plumbs, For they sustain the universe. While man In his poor passion only would attain, They are inviolate to any bane, Magnificent, taintless of scheme or plan. So was thy love, O little heart, complete In gift of fire! Ideal was the scope Of plenitude, of freedom from all hope Or any claim, as sunshine's vernal sheet. So to be loved across the barren days— To have what human hearts will scarcely giv^t To be upheld by gift; by fire to live Even as the universe! O God, praise, praise! 46 XXIV. OVED Confessionals there are Not for penitence, for guilt; J But for happiness or jar. Some will find one in the quilt Of a turf of roots and flowers, With the face upon the mesh Dew hath tempered many hours, Till the grass smells washed and fresh; And the swell against the face, And the cold against the eyes Quieten grief by kind embrace, Give to rapture new surprise. Some will find one in the sand, Face upon the golden store Billows lately overspanned Till their ebbing left the floor— Bed of warm and tranquil grain, Only broken by the chip Of a white shell or the pain Of a pebble 'gainst the lip; There the sound of what hath been Infinite upon the spot Haunts it, though withdrawn unseen— Sound that moves, but goeth not. 47 r iii 1 Others will confess to sweet Softness of a breast and lay Face to warmth of living heat, Sweeter than the warmest day; Where beneath the softness heaves Tide that never is withdrawn; Where the heart that fiercely grieves, Rocking, may no longer mourn— Smooth as rocking bird at sea; Where for joy a throb is found, Pulse of mortal sympathy, Fountain of a deep profound, Others to their pillow tell All that in their blood they feel; On the downy dip and swell Hide their faces with appeal To a gentleness of curve Slumber sculptures for her need, Where from slumber's long reserve Breaks, as fume from drowsy weed, Secret of a powerful ease, And a mildness breathed by dreams That at morning/time would please, Yea, would sun what softly seems. 48 Pillow, turf, nor sand, nor breast As confessional I sought: Nay, but down my face was pressed In thy wondrous fur, enwrought Of the gilded motes of sun, And the tongues of ruddy fire, And the wool that Jason won When—his utmost of desire— He had raped his Golden Fleece: There I hid my joys and woes, There my solitude would cease, There my thoughts their travel close. Dearer would that fur beguile Than the pillow's tenderest fold; Deeper than the turf, its pile, Warmer and more manifold In its lulling magic spell Than the seashore's golden hum; Sweeter of its yielded balm, Yea, even sweeter than to come To a human breast for calm, Since no breast could have such sole Comfort of itself to yield, No such absolution whole— Sorrow buried, joy revealed. 2 49 I ■frf mm li %XXV. WANT you, little Love, not from the skies: To*day I want you in my starving eyes; To see your jasper scowl across the brow, As precious jasper barred Scowls in its substance. I would wonder how Thou could'st have ears so soft, yet as a pard Such sudden feet. Oh, I would watch the glint Of all the wealth the sun from thee could mint— Thy paler wool that from the moon would take Reflex of sun and into silver break. I want you with your resolute, fine jaw Snapped down to hold one love, one love no more, Not mine, but hers we love: your glance, the spark Prometheus stole as fire, A little thing that could remove the dark It lived through, making of its haunt a pyre; A glance with wayward shifting of pure flame, And strength to found a Temple/hearth, be tame To worshfp, but to other curbing wild, Nor to sky/robbing earth yet reconciled. 50 •2>-~x-- I want you, when to guard our door you rushed, In whirlwind loyalty; or when you brushed Against the knee your little chin with soft Claim for caress, in anxious play Still buzzing like a wasp, and claiming oft; Or when with wary, pointed nose you lay Hearing your mistress praise her doves aloud, While of her praise you made a little cloud; Or when reverberent as echoed shout Your face acclaimed the «Yes» of going out. I want you with the gold/set, fearful stress With which you lived to your one blessedness. A herald sure to your Beloved, her sign, Her symbol, as the lion we see Beside St. Jerome, or the wheel divine Set by Egyptian Catharine goldenly... Ever thy feet in fourfold trip with those They move for; or thy body in repose. Cast with a smack against the floor of pride As a Knight clanged down by his lady's side. I want you in your great magnificence Of Eastern calm, holding your rage in fence Of roses and of jasmine and of grapes: Or when in sun and wind you ran, Flashing a joy to me such as escapes From spirits of untameable, far span, Who sometimes mingle in a poet's mirth, Having such element of starry earth 51 fl. In spell about them that their very eyes Give and receive terrestrial sympathies. I want you in your thousand ways of love— The rapture of your welcome, far above What choral stars as the world rose to them Gave in their dance of fire and light— A welcome many moments could not stem, That fell exhausted with Time's cruel fight, Fell down and slept. O little Chow, to see These loved and perfect sights avouching thee, Not far away, as visions may appear, O apple of our eyes, but with us here 1 If, 52 f*! vxxvi. i«^tsiM^B fpj HEN others are about me and the lips Of any other bid me to forget, Urge me I must not suffer whole eclipse Of light without a rim, nor let My tears fall ever—since the dew even slips At its own season from the earth washed wet, Or bid me seek in other lands to find New images to hide thee from my mind— Then am I desolate nor do I weep; A tongueless scream is on my breath for load; And thou art in a little grave, deep, deep, Scooped in my heart—such small abode For thee, a spot so narrow where to keep My all, in wood and stone the damps corrode. Nay, when we laid thee in thy earthly grave No such life/dwindling woe thy burial gave! And when the others leave me piercingly I wheel and cry above my hidden need, As sea/birds for their prey beneath the sea: Then sudden with a single heed, I sink down where my whole desire would be, Where I would find my unseen life and feed; Lost in my heart my pinions seek their food; My heart, a silver sea's infinitude. 53 A sea—no tomb, no coffin...till again Those others write or prattle at my side, And bid me take distraction, woo my pain To flux of pleasures, travel wide, Then through the bitterness of my disdain I feel thy grave where lowly thou dost hide, And curse these comforters who bring me death, When I alone with thee feed and draw breath. 54 IP li ULL of the passions nurtured in I the wild And virgin places of the world, hym Chow, Thou earnest to thy Mistress, as a child Untameable of earth, and none knew how, Save she, to mould thy untranslatable, And native being, personality Risen from primaeval force and under spell: A solitary creature that must be Lone, till there lighted in its heart a star, First love. O infinite and savage, yet Of sweetest temper as those creatures are That never had a hand on them nor let Any save Nature's hand approach them near. Thou wert far back from anything men write, Far deeper in imagination's rear Than books can delve or poet's lingering sight Reach in the past of ages. Love alone Threw on the dark of forests in thy soul A flashlight to recesses never shown, Where thou wert softly moving to one goal— Love of thy Mistress, not of kind—a new Compulsion from that Eros who began Forth of God's breast the darkness to subdue, And lead it to a bliss that stars should span. 55 ff^m Jlfxxvm. HEN at the Door of Death, The white door with the knocker of coiled snakes, Shall I not cease even from my struggling breath, Will not my voice stand by my heart that quakes, And call, as life heaves from its mould to dust, Call, call for thee: but listen dumb If there is breeze of little breath up/thrust Against the other side, or happy thrum Of little feet upon the inner floor? If I but hear those sounds, the bar is gone, As if a lava/stream had split the wall; No more the serpents and the portal wan, A momentary blaze, then blotted out: Death never more in front of me at all— No knocking at the lintel echoes flout! *o But thou, thou, my bright Flame, my welcome/ tome, joy's first touch... in front even of those forms That I am rent through Death to reach. Q thou, My foremost, and my certainty love warms The spaces of this space where spirits roam! Close, close to me, my Chow, My little Chow—for what hath been is passed, We dancing glad... Those others come too fast. If' 56 ill ■■.%«xxix. I^p|iSsa^l| CHOW, the Peace of her I love above All else, O feeder of her heart forlorn, I Sustainer of her torn, Conflicted Nature with a seamless love! Her Silence!—Light her, as with torch of fir, ■ O little flambeau, that hath never smoked, Never grown dim, but ever leapt for her Forth of its Bacchic resin; and evoked By breath of her alone, would blaze and stir Through desolation mountain/mists that choked Dead hollows, till its presence came Through them triumphant, with unbated flame. Still love her, little Chow, still love thy Own, m For solely by thy leaping love she keeps Live now on earth; and, of thy light alone, By surety of thy brand that never sleeps, Will she tread out her wandering with no moan, Nor die! Unless thy ruddy flambeau leaps, Naught can assuage her grief, No mortal nor immortal give relief. 57 I Jj^ mf\.mW.mC\i* SK and it shall be given thee»— ; Then I ask I One little spring may well up in my heart To everlasting life. It is Thy task, God of the Waters that impulsive start In Love's domain, to keep perpetual Their care of life, their circling font at brim, Nor to let drowth/delighting waves grow dull, Unbreathed on by the winds from rim to rim. God of the Living Waters, at Thy hand I ask my little Chow's upwelling love In liberal current ever, Thy command Removing cruel thirst now and above. THE END. 58 ■BUS! fjf( 1 11 1 1 if THESE POEMS WERE WRITTEN IN 1906 AND WERE PRINTED IN THE ■ I EARLY SPRING OF 1914. if M (0 Ml I • _ 1 I A «i / ti C&M -*-