Collected Works (Vol. II)

62. ALICE: AN ADULTERY Me the grim harpies hold In kisses slaver-cold, , Mute serpent-shapes of gold With serpent stings. The dreadful bridal won, The demon banquet done, My flesh let loose :— Rises a strange red sun, A sight to slay or stun; Sepulchral dews Fall from the rayless globe, Whose sightless fingers probe My golden-folded robe, My soul’s misuse. And in that thankless shape Vines grow without a grape, Thorns roseless spring. Nay! There is no escape :— The yawning portals gape, The orbed ring As by a whirlpool drawn Into that devil-dawn :— I sink and shriek and fawn Upon the thing. Ha! in the desperate pang And subtle stroke and fang Of hateful kisses Whence devilish laughter sprang, Close on me with a clang The brazen abysses. The leopard-coloured paw Strikes, and the cruel jaw Hides me in the glutless maw— Crown of ten blisses ! For all the vision world Is closed on me and curled Into the deep Of my slow soul, and hurled Through lampless lands, and furled, Sharp folds and steep: Till all unite in one, Seven planets in the sun, And I am deeplicr done Into full sleep. MESSALINE. BENEATH the living cross I lie And swoon towards eternity: Prodigious sinewy shapes, and lean And curving limbs of Messaline. The deep arched eyes, the floating mane,— One pierces, one wraps-in my brain. A crown of thorn, a spear of clean Cold fire of dying Messaline. Swart tangles of devouring hair, The scorpion labyrinth and snare, Leprous entanglements of sense, The Imminence of the _Immense. And in the deep hard breath I draw Kissed from her strangling mouth and maw, I feel the floating deaths that dwell About that citadel of hell; A soft lewd flavour, an obscene Mysterious self of Messaline. Or, in the kisses that swoop low To catch my breath and kill me so, I feel the ghostliness of this ‘Unreal shuttle-game—the kiss ! Her moving body sobs above, And calls its lechery true love. Out from the flame of heart she plucks One flower of fiery light, and sucks Its essence up within her lips, And flings it into mine, and dips And bends her body, writhes and swims To link the velvet of our limbs, My drouthy passion worn and keen, And lusty life of Messaline. The heart’s blood in her boiling over She sucked from many a dying lover : The purple of her racing veins ILeapt from some soul’s despairing pains ; She drinks up life as from a cup ; She drains our health and builds it up Into her body ; takes our breath, And we—we dream not it is death! Arm unto arm and eye to eye, Breast to great breast and thigh to thigh, We look, and strain, and laugh, and die. I see the head hovering above To swoop for cruelty or love ;