Collected Works (Vol. II)

80 ALICE: AN ADULTERY That was the best: far sundered by the tide Dolorous, endless as Oceanus,! A serpent-river girdling the large earth, Still in that pure embrace we bring to birth A thousand pleasant children born of us, Sacred and sinless, if unsanctified. LETHE. WE have forgotten all the days of fear, The nights of torment when the kiss expired, Lost upon lips with love not overtired, But fearing many things—the after year, The end, the man—O no, not him! the tear, The children’s sorrow, and our own shame fired Not less in doing all that love desired: We have forgotten, surely—being here! We have forgotten every shape of sorrow, Knowing no end to one night’s ecstasy In the night’s kiss from morning that we borrow, From the hard usurer, Eternity— Seeing we have it in our power to die Before the new kiss kindle for the morrow. THE THIRTY-SEVENTH DAY. ‘* By long and vehement suit I was seduced To make room for him in my husband's bed.” King John. Morvra.s are not for nectar all the time: Ambrosia feeds not men ; nepenthe's sip Is only for a moment: then we dip Back to the earth and leave the bed sublime, 1 The imaginary river of the Ancients, which formed the circumference of the world-disk. And tune our kisses to a terrene rhyme. So, once again before we left the ship With right good will our bodies cling and slip, And the life’s flame sinks as the kisses climb. There never has been such a supreme kiss Since heaven and earth began to be as this ! Doubt nothing of it! yet our spirits knew Its savour was as roses fallen to dust: Our proper food was of Selenian dew, And love without a battle conquered lust. THE THIRTY-EIGHTH DAY. ‘The carcass of a beauty spent and done.” Lover's Complaint. ONE day from landing. Kamakura sees Pass to the mighty shrine and shape of bronze t Me, pilgrim, murmuring pious orisons, Taking my refuge in that House of Peace, And after, sees my love, and doth not please. - She was too young to know that shrine the Son’s, Or see the Virgin’s House in Kwan- se-on’s ;! And when I told her, flushed, and bade me cease. I ceased indeed! All hope of mental flower She shattered in five minutes: following lust, All intellectual communing did pass, And all respect of mind: but love’s high tower, Stricken of lightning, stood: not fallen in dust, Beautiful fragments as of a Greek vase. 1 The Dai-Butsu, a vast statue af Buddha. 2 The Goddess. Her function is variously identified with that of Isis, Bhavani, or the Kundalini.