Collected Works (Vol. II)

THE TWENTY-FIRST DAY 73 THE EIGHTEENTH DAY. ‘Touches so soft still conquer chastity.”’ Passionate Pilgrim. SHE grew most fearful, starting at slight noise ; As knowing that the sting of shame was hers Worse than a guilty love administers, Since our pure shame unworthily destroys The love of all she had, her girls and boys, Her home, their lives: and yet my whisper stirs Into live flame her passion, and deters Her fear from spurning all the day’s due joys. She had not dared to speak one word, to tell How deep and pure a fountain sunward leapt In her life’s garden: but to-night she lay In my intense embraces : so the spell . Moved her: ‘I love you,” said she. So we kept, Remurmuring that one phrase until the day. THE NINETEENTH DAY. ‘« The boy is foolish, and I fear not him,” Richard I1, SHE dared not come into my room to-night. So? I was acquiescent, sharp despair And nervous purpose mixing in me there The while I waited: then I glided light (Clad in the swart robe of an eremite)? Across the passage. Now, all unaware My kisses underneath the veil of vair Woke her: she turned and sighed and Keld me tight. Her child slept gently on the farther side. But we took danger by the throat, de- spised All but the one sole splendour that we prized ; . 1 Crowley was accustomed to wear a black robe of a magical pattern aS a vole de chambre. And she, whose robe was far too slight to hide The babe-smooth breasts, was far too frail to cover Her heart’s true fire and music from her lover. THE TWENTIETH DAY. ‘* Val. How long hath she been deformed? Speed. Ever since you loved her.” Two Gentlemen of Verona, AGAIN the unveiled goddess of delight Watched us at midnight: there my lover lay ° Child-breasted, maiden as the rose of day Dawning on snowy mountains: through deep night Her body gleamed self-luminously white With the sweet soul that sundered the quick clay, And all her being was a sense of May ;— Scent conquering colour, soul out- running sight. Not with the Lysian,! nor Iacchian dew Of frenzy covered, but with warmer flakes Of Aphrodite shed upon our life, We clung still closer, till the soul ran through Body to body, twined like sunny snakes, Sinlessly knowing we were man and wife. THE TWENTY-FIRST DAY. “ Mal, Dispute it like a man. Macd. , I shall do so. But I must also feel it as a man.” Macbeth. | I HAD a fearful dream (on going away) Of scorpion women curled in my caress, And twenty days they closed on my distress ) Not giving me relief, but gold and gray, 1 Cornelius Agrippa distinguishes three frenzies; of Apollo, Dionysus, and Aphrodite; song, wine, and love.