Collected Works (Vol. I)

Tuk COURT OF THE PROFANE 171 Fretted with stars, thrice woven across. White limbs in amorous slumber toss Like sleeping foam, whase silver gleams* On motionless dark seas ; it seems As if some gentle spirit stiricel Their lazy brows with sume swift word. So, in the secret of the shrine, Night keeps them nestled ; so the gloom Laps them in waves as smooth as wine, As glowing as the fery womb Of some young tigress, dark as doom, And swift as sunrise. Love’s content Builds its own mystic monument, And carves above its vaulted tomb The Phoenix on her fery plume, To their own souls to testify Their kisses’ immortality. THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE. O CRIMSON cheeks of love’s fierce fever ! O amber skin, electric to the kiss ! O eyes of sin! O bosom of my bliss ! Sorrow, the web, is spun of Love the weaver. Twelve moons have circled in their seasons 3 The earth has swept, exultant, round the sun$ Our love has slept, and, sleeping, made us one: The thirteenth moon, be sure, the time o1 treasons! Another spirit waves its pinions. Love vanishes : we hate each other’s sight. In sullen seas sinks our sun-flaming light, Darkness is master of the dream-dominions. Lo! in thy womb a child! How rotten Seems love to me who love it as my soul ! The love of thee hath broken its control, The misconceived become the misbegotten. In thee the love of me is broken. , Fear, hatred, pain, discomfort mock thy days ; | Thou canst disdain ; these solitary bays Twine with decaying myrtles for a token. Dislike, disgust (you say repulsers) Link me to thee despite—because of— this Skeleton key to charnel-house. My kiss Is the dog's kiss to Lazarus his ulcers ! Mock me, ye clinging lovers, at your peril ! God turns to dust the blossom of your youth. The fruit of lust is poisonous with—truth ! Its immortality is-—to be sterile ! This lie of Love hath no abiding : “Two loves are ended; one, the infant band, Rises more splendid.” sand ! Two loves are one ; but O to their dividing! Spin the rope of Fertility—distaste’s adoption ! Her body’s growth—desire’s mortality ! I look and loathe. Behold how lovers die, And immortality puts on corruption ! ASMODEL.! Cat. down that star whose tender eyes Were on thy bosom at thy birth ! Call, one long passionate note that sighs ! Call, till its beauty bend to earth, Meet thee and lift thee and devise Strange loves within the gleaming girth, And kisses underneath the star Where on her brows its seven rays are. Call her, the maiden of thy sleep, And fashion into human shape The whirling fountains fiery and deep, The incense-columns that bedrape 1 One of the ‘‘ Intelligences" of the Planet Venus.