Collected Works (Vol. I)

THE FIVE KISSES gI Through silken curtains that bedeck the bed. | A| swifl white arrow at some recreant Lift up thine head ! star. For night is here, a dragon, to devour The slow sweet hour Filled with all smoke of incense, and the praise More loud than day’s That swings its barren censer in the sky And asks to die Because the sea will hear no hollow moan Beyond its own, Because the sea that kissed dead Sappho! sings Of strange dark things— Shapes of bright breasts that purple as the sun Grows dark and dun, Of pallid lips more haggard for the kiss Of Salmacis,? Of eager eyes that startle for the fear Too dimly dear Lest there come death, like passion, and fulfil Their dreams of ill! Oh! lift thy forehead to the night’s cool wind ! The meekest hind That fears the noonday in her grove is bold To seek the gold So pale and perfect as the moon puts on: The light is gone. Hardly as yet one sees the crescent maid Move, half afraid, Into the swarthy forest of the air And, breast made bare, Gather her limbs about her for the chase Through starry space, And, while the lilies sway their heads, to bend Her bow, to send 1 Sappho, the great lyric poet of Greece, plunged from a rock into the sea, according to later tradition. 2 A stream into which a man plunged, and was united, as a Hermaphrodite, with its attendant nymph. ‘The reference is connected with Sappho’s loves. See her Ode to Aphrodite and Swinburne’s Anactoria and Hermaphro- ditus. The sea is far Dropped in the hollows of the swooning land. Oh! hold my hand! Lift up thy deep eyes to my face, and let Our lips forget The dumb dead hours before they met to- gether ! The snowbright weather Calls us beyond the grassy downs, to be Beside the sea, The slowly-breathing ocean of the south. Oh, make thy mouth A rosy flame like that most perfect star Whose kisses are So red and ripe! Oh, let thy limbs entwine Like love with mine! Oh, bend thy gracious body to my breast To sleep, to rest ! But chiefly let thine eyes be set on me, As when the sea Lay like a mirror to reflect the shape Of yonder cape Where Sappho stood and touched the lips of death ! Thy subtle breath Shall flow like incense in between our cheeks, Where pleasure seeks In vain a wiser happiness. And so Our whispers low Shall dim the utmost beauty of thy gaze Through moveless days And long nights equable with pleasure : So love at leisure Shall make his model of our clinging looks, And burn his books To write a new sweet volume deeper much, And frail to touch, Being the mirror of a gossamer Too soft and fair. is the hour when all the world is sleeping ; The winds are keeping A lulling music on the frosty sea. The air is free, trancéd This