142
THE STAR IN THE WEST
Further
on
in this
same
series
of poems
we come
across an almost more lurid
description of this Mes
saline
in
“
The
Jilt,”
in which
her
new -found
lover
feasts
off
the
agony
of her last victim , which
still
moistens her blood -red lips :
His death
lends savour to our passionate life ;
His is the heart I taste upon your tongue ;
His death -spasms
our love -spasms , my wife ;
His death -songs are the love -songs that you
sung !
Ah ! Sweet , each kiss I drink from you is warm
With the dear life -blood of a man-a man !
The scent of murder lures
me , like a charm
Tied by some subtlety Canidian .
Ay ! as you suck my life
out into bliss,
Its holier joy is in the deadlier thirst
That drank his life out into the abyss
Of torture endless , endless
and accurst .
I know him little ; liking what I know .
But you —you
offer
me his flesh
and
blood .
I taste it - never another vintage owe ,
Nor bid me sup upon another food !
This is our marriage ; firmer than
the root
Of love or lust could plant our joy , my wife,
We stand
in this , the purple - seeded fruit
Of yon youth's fair and pitiable life .'
So we see before us
a curious
form
, at times cold
as the
marble statue of Pygmalion , and
then , when
the
kiss of Venus
had incarnadined those chill
lips ,
all
life and
passion
,
transforming
those ivory breasts
into sharp points
of
liquid fire
,
and those
still thighs
into
all
the subtlety
of
twin snakes
.
Yet that mouth
,
breathing the purple fire
of
love
,
or
cold
as
the dusty
1
The Jilt
,
vol
.
iii
,
pp
.
99
,
100
.