Collected Works (Vol. III)

158 ORPHEUS LIBER SECUNDUS VEL AMORIS TO MARY BEATON WHOM I LAMENT ‘* The Kabbalists say that when a man fallsin love with a female elemental—undine, sylph, gnome, or salamandrine, as the case may be—she becomes immortal with him, or otherwise he dies with her. . . . The love of the magus for such beings is insensate, and may destroy him.” —£iiphaz Levi. ‘Orpheus for the love he bare to his wife, snatcht, as it were, from him by untimely Death, resolved to go down to Hell with his harp, to try if he might obtain her of the in- fernal power." —7he Wisdom of the Ancients. ORPHEUS, FINDING EURYDICE Stir once, move once, rise once, Eurydice ! DEAD, STUNG BY A SERPENT, : Be good to me! LAMENTS OVER HER. ' Rise once.—O sleep not! Listen ! Is not all | Nature my thrall ? Come back, come back, come back, Eury- |“Once only: be not dead, Eurydice! dice! ! Be good to me! Come back to me! Y love you—be not dead !—rise up and say Lie not so quiet, draw some faint sharp_ ‘“T feigned, I lay breath ! - Thus so you kissed me ”—O Eurydice, It is not death : Be good to me! It cannot, must not be, Eurydice. Come back to me! . There is not one sweet sigh of all the old Let me as yet lament not! Let me stoop !— | sighs— Those eyelids droop | Open your eyes! Not with mere death, but dreams, Eurydice! Not one warm breath of the young breast: Come back to me! | no sleep | Could be so deep. O you that were my lover and my wife! The last pale lotus opens to the skies. Come back to life! | Open your eyes ! Come back, breathe softly from the breast of Lift the blue eyelids under the deep lashes Till one light flashes! old . These arms enfold. Wake with one supreme sigh like the old Give me your lips and kiss me once! O wife, sighs ! Come back to life! Open your eyes ! Nay, let the wind but stir the silky hair, : (God’s lesser air, ‘I cannot leave you so, Eurydice. Not His full blossom of woman’s breath !) ! Come back to me! O wife, -Just in the triumph, in love’s utmost hour, Come back to life ! ) Life’s queenliest flower—