Collected Works (Vol. II)

66 ALICE: AN ADULTERY What matter who, or how, or even when? If we but look beyond the primal pain, And trust the Future to write all things plain, Graven on brasswith the predestined pen. This is the doom. Upon the blind blue sky A little cloud, no larger than an hand ! Whether I live and love, or love and die, I care not: either way I understand. To me—to live is Christ ; to die is gain: For I, I also, I shall come again. THE FIFTH DAY. ‘Thine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.” Richard Il. ALL thought of work is almost cast aside. I followed like a dog the way she went, Speaking but seldom, very well content To day-dream, oft imagining a bride, A wife, a lover, even a sister, tied By some soft bond of twinning: thus I blent A real joy with a brighter element Of fancy free to wander far and wide. For as I followed by the shore and bended Over her footsteps in the wood, my will Rose to high strength assertive and transcended. The petty forms of the seducer’s skill. Chaste love strode forth, a warrior’s stern and splendid Determined footsteps on the Arcadian Hill. THE SIXTH DAY. ‘* Are there not charms By which the property of youth and maidhood May be abuséd ?”’ Othello, I DREW a hideous talisman of lust In many colours where strong sigils shone ; - Cronk’d mystic language of oblivion, Fitted to crack and scorch the terrene crust And bring the sulphur steaming from the thrust | Of Satan’s winepress, was ill written on The accurséd margin, and the orison Scrawled backwards, as a bad magician must. By these vile tricks, abominable spells, _ I drew foul horrors from a many hells— Though I had fathomed Fate; though I had seen Chastity charm-proof arm the sea-gray eyes And sweet clean body of my spirit’s queen, Where nothing dwells that God did not devise. THE SEVENTH DAY. ‘This word ‘love,’ which greybeards call divine, Be resident in men like one another And not in me: I am myself alone.” 3 Henry VI, THEREFORE I burnt the wicked pantacle, And cast my love behind me once again. I mused upon the mystery of pain, Where the Gods ‘taught me by another spell Not chosen from the armoury of Hell, But given of Mercury to cleanse the stain Of the old planet: thus I wrote me plain Secrets divine—tremendous, terrible ! Thus I forgot my soul and dwelt alone In the strong fortress of the active mind Whose steady flame burned eager in the night ; Yet was some shadow on the starry throne, Some imperfection playing hoodman- blind So that I saw not perfectly aright.