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VENUS 9I O Goddess, maiden, and wife ! Is the marriage bed in vain ? Shall my heart and soul and life shrink back to themselves again ? Be thou my one desire, my soul in day as in night ! My mind the Home of the Higher ! My heart the centre of Light !
…te ! Swift tongue of fire, Kindled from that immeasurable light The boundless, the immutable. Come forth, My God, my lover, spirit of my heart, Heart of my soul, white virgin of the Dawn, My Queen of all perfection, come thou forth From thine abode beyond the Silences To me the prisoner, me the mortal man, Shrined in this clay : come forth, I say, to me, Initiate my quickened soul ; draw near, And let the glory of thy Godhead shine Through all the luminous aethers of the air Even to earth, thy footstool ; unto me Who by these sacred invocations…
88 VENUS Buried my heart in thy sorrow, cast down my soul at thy knees. Thou, thou hast left me no morrow. Days and desires, what are these ? Nay, I have torn from my breast passion and love and despair : Sought in thy palaces rest, sleep that awaited me there ; Sleep that awaits me in vain : I have done with the hope of things ; Passion and pleasure and pain have stung me, and lost their stings. Only abides there a hollow, void as the heart of the earth. Echo may find it and follow, dead from the day of her birth. Life, of itself not insatiate…
… silent blasphemies To lure a soul to hell, to draw some saint’s charred lust, to tempt, to win Another sacrifice to sin, another poet’s heart to gnaw With dubious remorse. Oh ! flame of torturing flower- love ! sacrament Of Satan, triple element of mystery and love and shame, Green, gold, and crimson, in my heart you strive with Jesus for its realm, While Sorrow’s tears would overwhelm the warriors of either part.
4 THE BALLOON While my heart’s soft pulse did go, Devils had it in their bands. Doctors keep it in a row, Now, on varnished wooden stands : And I really do not know If it is in different hands.
…from love, and love’s guerdon Is life and its burden. To-night if I turn to my lover I must ask : If she be ? who am I ? To-night if her heart I uncover No heart in the night I espy. I am grips with the question of eld, and the sphinx holds fast My eyes to the past. Who am I, when I say I languish ? Who is she, if I call her mine ? And the fool’s and the wise man’s anguish Are burnt in the bitter shrine. The god is far as the stars, and the wine and fire Salt with desire. Desunt cetera.
…nd guards the shore ; The ocean, the bull-throated, evermore Roars ; the vast wheel of heaven turns above, Its rim of pain, its jewelled heart of love ; Sun-waved, the eagle wing Of the air of feathered spring Royally sweeps and on the musical merge Watches alone the man. O silvern shape and span Of moonlight, reaching over the grey, large Breast of the surf-bound strand, Life of the earth, God’s child, Man’s bride, the light of the sweet land ! Are emeralds ever a spark of this clear green, Or sapphires hints of this diviner blue, Or rubies sh…
… bosom warm And accents sweet To help to raise (and no man will upbraid you) Your sisters fallen far ? ’ Tis vain ! God’s worst omission—Heart—has made you The thing you are !
…emselves the Maenads on my shoulders” So the self-willed’s folly lights the laugher Rippling round the theatre. But horror Seizes on the heart of the judicious. They see only madness and destruction In the mockery’s self innate, implicit. Horror, deeper grief, most dreadful musings Theirs who penetrate the poet’s purpose ! So in all the passing joys of nature, Joys of birth, and joys of life, in pleasures Beautiful or innocent or stately, May the wise discern the fact of being— Change and death, the tragedy deep-lurking Hidden in the laughter o…
…race Even in the shape of splendour as she passed. The king’s thought turned at last To that forgotten story : and desire Filled all his heart with aureate fire Whose texture was a woman’s hair : so fine Bloomed the fair flower of pleasure : Not the wild solar treasure Of gleaming light, but the moon’s shadowy pearl, The love of a young girl Before she knows that love : so mused the king ; “ I am not weary of the soul of spring” He said, “ none happier in this causeless chain Of life that bears no fruit of pain, No seed of sorrow,” yet his hear…
…s steep. The chattering voices of the day depart. Earth folds her limbs and leans her loving breast Even to all her children : the great heart Beats solemnly the requiem of rest. The sea keeps tune ; the silent stars upstart Seeming to sentinel that sombre crest Where of old time burst out the vulture fire Cyclopean, that is dead, now, as a man’s desire. The drowsy cries of night birds, then the song Lovely and lovelorn in the listening vale, So wild and tender, swooping down in long Notes of despair, then lifting the low tale In golden notes t…
… they all complain They “ want ” thee, oh ! so badly. Thou canst not tell the signs and sobs That for thy presence yearn ; And the great heart of England throbs With joy at thy return. For many a year prolong thy stay By Portland’s shady harbour ; And all expenses we will pay— Especially the barber. A change of work is rest, they say, So honest toil shall rest thee ; No fears that thou must go away Need haunt thee and molest thee. I3
…n thy breast ? What aileth thee, O many-mooded melancholy sea ? Hear the swift rush of that triumphant wing ! Listen ! the world’s whole heart is listening ! In England now the leaf leaps, and the tree Gleams dewy, and the bird woos noisily. Here in the tropics now is no such thing. Dull heavy heat burns through the clouded sky, And yet no promise of the latter rains. Earth bears her fruit, but unrefreshed of death. In winter is no sorrow, in the dry Harsh spring no joy, while pestilence and pains Hover like wolves behind the summer’s breath. I…
…ed ! Hear me, Apollo ! Let thy fierce fingers sweep the lyre forgotten ! Recall the ancient glory of thy chanted Music that thrilled the hearts of men, and haunted Life to adore thee ! Cleanse thou our market-places misbegotten ! Fire in my heart and music to my pæan Lend, that my song bow, past the empyrean, Phœbus, before thee ! 83
…e Delphian stone’s ! So thou to me : best lover of . . . Thou who art love and pity and clean art, Wearing a rosebud on thy blood-bright heart, A lily on thy brows ; I comprehend Thy mystic utterance : read its rune aright : For . . . , love ; for Aleister, delight. * So the schoolboy : Nemo sapit omnibus horis—no one is safe in an omnibus with ladies. 159
…t in some wizard wise— The frozen look—the miserable man ! What sudden barb of what detested dart Springs from Apollo’s bowstring to his heart ? On sense-dulled ears what Voice rings the decree ? “ For thee the women burn : the wine is cool : For thee the fresco and the fruit—thou fool ! This night thy soul shall be required of thee ! ” III
…e grasses Abandon the fells. There silence, arrayed as a spectre, Is visible, tangible, near, To the cup of the man pours nectar, To the heart of the coward is fear : 169
…ghts ; let the wise man guard his thoughts ; well guarded thoughts bring happiness. Moving alone, far-travelling, bodiless, hidden i’th’ heart, who trains His thought and binds it by his will shall be released from Mara’s chains.
THE STORM Written on the North Atlantic Ocean. IN the sorrow of the silence of the sunset, when the world’s heart sinks to sleep, And the waking wind arises from the wedding of the aether and the deep, There are perfumes through the saltness of the even ; there are hints of flowers afar ; And the God goes down lamented by the lonely vesper star. The monsters rise around us as we move in moving mist, Slow whales that swim as musing, and lo ! or ever we wist, Looms northward in the grey, mysterious ice, cathedral high, Clad in transparent clouds …
46 THE BLOOD-LOTUS Their song is in my ears, that burn with their melodious wickedness ; But in her heart my sorceress has songs more sinful, that I learn As she sings slowly all their shame, and makes me tingle with delight At new debaucheries, whose might rekindles blood and bone to flame. The circle gathers. Negresses howl in the naked dance, and wheel On poinard-blades of poisoned steel, and weep out blood in agonies ; Strange beast and reptile writhe ; the song grows high and melancholy now ; The perfume savours every brow with lust unutte…