Faustine

Ave Faustina Imperatrix, morituri te salutant.

	Lean back, and get some minutes’ peace;
	Let your head lean
	Back to the shoulder with its fleece
	Of locks, Faustine.
	The shapely silver shoulder stoops,
	Weighed over clean
	With state of splendid hair that droops
	Each side, Faustine.
	Let me go over your good gifts
10	That crown you queen;
	A queen whose kingdom ebbs and shifts
	Each week, Faustine.
	Bright heavy brows well gathered up:
	White gloss and sheen;
	Carved lips that make my lips a cup
	To drink, Faustine,
	Wine and rank poison, milk and blood,
	Being mixed therein
	Since first the devil threw dice with God
20	For you, Faustine.
	Your naked new-born soul, their stake,
	Stood blind between;
	God said ‘let him that wins her take
	And keep Faustine.’
	But this time Satan throve, no doubt;
	Long since, I ween,
	God’s part in you was battered out;
	Long since, Faustine.
	The die rang sideways as it fell,
30	Rang cracked and thin,
	Like a man’s laughter heard in hell
	Far down, Faustine,
	A shadow of laughter like a sigh,
	Dead sorrow’s kin;
	So rang, thrown down, the devil’s die
	That won Faustine.
	A suckling of his breed you were,
	One hard to wean;
	But God, who lost you, left you fair,
40	We see, Faustine.
	You have the face that suits a woman
	For her soul’s screen –
	The sort of beauty that’s called human
	In hell, Faustine.
	You could do all things but be good
	Or chaste of mien;
	And that you would not if you could,
	We know, Faustine.
	Even he who cast seven devils out
50	Of Magdalene
	Could hardly do as much, I doubt,
	For you, Faustine.
	Did Satan make you to spite God?
	Or did God mean
	To scourge with scorpions for a rod
	Our sins, Faustine?
	I know what queen at first you were,
	As though I had seen
	Red gold and black imperious hair
60	Twice crown Faustine.
	As if your fed sarcophagus
	Spared flesh and skin,
	You come back face to face with us,
	The same Faustine.
	She loved the games men played with death,
	Where death must win;
	As though the slain man’s blood and breath
	Revived Faustine.
	Nets caught the pike, pikes tore the net;
70	Lithe limbs and lean
	From drained-out pores dripped thick red sweat
	To soothe Faustine.
	She drank the steaming drift and dust
	Blown off the scene;
	Blood could not ease the bitter lust
	That galled Faustine.
	All round the foul fat furrows reeked,
	Where blood sank in;
	The circus splashed and seethed and shrieked
80	All round Faustine.
	But these are gone now: years entomb
	The dust and din;
	Yea, even the bath’s fierce reek and fume
	That slew Faustine.
	Was life worth living then? and now
	Is life worth sin?
	Where are the imperial years? and how
	Are you Faustine?
	Your soul forgot her joys, forgot
90	Her times of teen;
	Yea, this life likewise will you not
	Forget, Faustine?
	For in the time we know not of
	Did fate begin
	Weaving the web of days that wove
	Your doom, Faustine.
	The threads were wet with wine, and all
	Were smooth to spin;
	They wove you like a Bacchanal,
100	The first Faustine.
	And Bacchus cast your mates and you
	Wild grapes to glean;
	Your flower-like lips were dashed with dew
	From his, Faustine.
	Your drenched loose hands were stretched to hold
	The vine’s wet green,
	Long ere they coined in Roman gold
	Your face, Faustine.
	Then after change of soaring feather
110	And winnowing fin,
	You woke in weeks of feverish weather,
	A new Faustine.
	A star upon your birthday burned,
	Whose fierce serene
	Red pulseless planet never yearned
	In heaven, Faustine.
	Stray breaths of Sapphic song that blew
	Through Mitylene
	Shook the fierce quivering blood in you
120	By night, Faustine.
	The shameless nameless love that makes
	Hell’s iron gin
	Shut on you like a trap that breaks
	The soul, Faustine.
	And when your veins were void and dead,
	What ghosts unclean
	Swarmed round the straitened barren bed
	That hid Faustine?
	What sterile growths of sexless root
130	Or epicene?
	What flower of kisses without fruit
	Of love, Faustine?
	What adders came to shed their coats?
	What coiled obscene
	Small serpents with soft stretching throats
	Caressed Faustine?
	But the time came of famished hours,
	Maimed loves and mean,
	This ghastly thin-faced time of ours,
140	To spoil Faustine.
	You seem a thing that hinges hold,
	A love-machine
	With clockwork joints of supple gold –
	No more, Faustine.
	Not godless, for you serve one God,
	The Lampsacene,
	Who metes the gardens with his rod;
	Your lord, Faustine.
	If one should love you with real love
150	(Such things have been,
	Things your fair face knows nothing of,
	It seems, Faustine);
	That clear hair heavily bound back,
	The lights wherein
	Shift from dead blue to burnt-up black;
	Your throat, Faustine,
	Strong, heavy, throwing out the face
	And hard bright chin
	And shameful scornful lips that grace
160	Their shame, Faustine,
	Curled lips, long since half kissed away,
	Still sweet and keen;
	You’d give him – poison shall we say?
	Or what, Faustine?