17
First, a poem must be magical,
Then musical as a sea-gull.
It must be a brightness moving
And hold secret a bird’s flowering.
It must be slender as a bell,
And it must hold fire as well.
It must have the wisdom of bows
And it must kneel like a rose.
It must be able to hear
The luminance of dove and deer.
It must be able to hide
What it seeks, like a bride.
And over all I would like to hover
God, smiling from the poem’s cover.
18
She has gone,
Who was ever alone.
I am left a haunted
Land. But mounted
Upon my brow a star
Henceforth to unbar
All mystery of such
As she whose much-
Ness must stand
Alone in any land.
Music has passed
By me and surpassed
Can ever aspire
To hold her. Body
Of love insuffices di-
Vinity of loneliness.
She must be loveless
And merely haunt.
Blessèd I, once at her font.
19
I can no more hear Love’s
Voice. No more moves
The mouth of her. Birds
No more sing. Words
I speak return lonely.
Flowers I pick turn ghostly.
Fire that I burn glows
Pale. No more blows
The wind. Time tells
No more truth. Bells
Ring no more in me.
I am all alone singly.
Lonely rests my head.
—O my God! I am dead.
20
I can not speak of the beauty of love
Without wonder. It is my belief of spring
That makes music invincible and poetry
A thing of goldest green. If I can not
Touch her thighs I shall nevermore sing
And birds will nevermore speak. It is this
Truth alone that keeps Jesu to go on. And
He is most lonely but the thought of me
And my love and my songs, these, like
Distant music, yes, these keep him going on.
21
And if the heart can not love
death can not cure it nor sleep
nor splendor of wound the heart
has no sound
Bloom has escaped it and
birth the miraculous flower
and music and speech leave
it unbewitched
God it can not spell nor sun
nor lover the beautiful word
and it has no sound no sound
nor wound
22
I was speaking of oranges to a lady
of great goodness when O the lovely
giraffes came. Soon it was all their
splendor about us and my throat
ached with the voice of great larks.
O the giraffes were so beautiful as
if they meant to stagger us by such
overwhelming vision: Let us give
each a rose said my beautiful lady
of great goodness and we sent the
larks away to find roses. It was
while the larks were away that
the whitest giraffe among them
and the goldest one among them
O these two loveliest ones sought
and found us: bent before us two
kneeling with their divine heads
bowed. And it was then we knew
why all this loveliness was sent
us: the white prince and the golden
princess kneeling: to adore us
brightly: we the Perfect Lovers.
23
Girl singing. Day. And on her way
She has to pass by the oldest mountain.
That at least is certain. Rain. That
Doth leave no stain. And again whose
Flowers move jealously. O pity me.
O if her eyes move and destroy all
Firmament. How brightly devised is
That moment. Much and muchly praised.
O day imperishably dazed. O woman
God-grazed. Succour God alone, O
Teach him Joy. O girl singing. O
For whom alone God bows out. O lovely
Throat. O world’s end. O brightly
Devised crystal moment.
O Lovely. O lovely as panther. O
Creation’s supremest dissenter.
Enter. Teach me thy luminous ire.
O jewelled, pacing, night-displacing
Fire. O night’s nimble-dancing, No-
Saying lyre. Embrace me. Defy me.
Reave me. None shall defend me.
Not God. Not I. Purify me. Consume
Me. Disintegrate me to thy ecstasy.
O lovely and without mercy. O dark-
Footed divinity. O Lovely and Terrible.
O Death-irreducible. O Unimpeachable.
25
There came you wishing me
And so I said
And then you turned your head
With the greatest beauty
Smiting me mercilessly!
And then you said
So that my heart was made
Into the strangest country…
you said, so beauteously,
So that an angel came
To hear that name,
And we caught him tremulously!
26
Hands handle the hours of night
More than the day’s.
Triune bright-resolute
While Death stares mute.
Death is overpowered
By this pure power.
These are the hands and the weapon
Of a Master.
Triune bright-resolute
The hands kiss God:
He ionizes hands and weapon.
Triune bright-resolute
Trinite of utmost love—
Advance—advance!
27
her day-rose is much sweet
her kisses are most love
such kissness is not told
withouten her rose’s fold
but birds bees best lovers
brave lovers aseeken more
a seekness as of God’s word
their loverness hath sword
for girlshape has girlgraces
of day-rose and night-rose
though day-rose be much sweet
yet night-rose is sevenly sweet
there where her night begins
there be her goldest rosest rose
that in her deep wisdom knows
boygrace will knight her Rose
O there where her night begins
there be her wondrous wondrous rose
I be forlornly aloss aloss
28
Am.
—But if being God has made
you fear and taught you terror—
if in this very deepest final mirror
Time has concentred the horrible shade
of extremest Tree under extremest Sun:
O Burning Laurel—
if in this most
deathless altitude comes the ghost
with the sure, well-levelled gun—
Nay do not bend. Be mostly tall—
arise to thy perfect height, be
equal to Terror’s proud solemnity
that, aiming for thy fall,
pulls her trigger but proves her bullet
blank against an unconquerable Target.
29
Silence is Thought converging,
Unprecipitate, like
Dancer on tight wire balancing,
Transitive, budlike,
Till—her act finished—in
One lovely jump skips
She to the floor, bending
To make her bows, dips
Then silence is
No more. Now it is the rose
Called Speech.
30
I did sternly (why not) ask very Death
to die, pointing my finger fiery
at him.
Death held his pirate breath.
I did (then) assume my (God’s) livery
urging all immortality’s guard (my
angels) to help Death die
with gallant bravery.
Death bowed uncowed: “I cannot
die
though (yes) that I would
having lived too long in the Dark Wood
I seek Light, Light, the God-Begot
yet thou (God) not having sired me
my scythe supersedes my gallantry.”
31
By all the luminance of her voice I swear
(and wine is not more wise than whose roses)
sing to me who tigers so musically discover
(deeply) about the bright limbs’ pauses.
When in such light—(though it be darkly, so
beautifully, silently night) my Eden sword
his rose-immortal war halts (briefly) to hoard
the luminous word: the only equal of the foe—
Then do I behold such tigers as more
brilliantly move than the Lord’s archangels,
Crouching fair, stripèd, at the very door
of Heaven: Damoclean princes with bells
of fire all ready to loose and peal
—to me, mortal—the Word—and so I spill.
32
than whose roses. And if her love be musical
as star more proudly moves than water
being by God’s cause her diviner sister
move then to me brightly her body’s vessel
and all its secrecies and all its dangers
than whose roseness there is no equal
but I, lone emperor of the gentlest tigers
the limbs’ wild music, strange and beautiful.
I am more than God’s equal—I am Love’s
most equal. I am he that moves to kiss
her very soul, her very deep: who weaves
of her the bright banner of immortality’s
most honor. I am he that through her shuttles
:Lover, divinest Lover: Father, Creator of
Immortal Battles.