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Page 1 of 11901 · PDF PAGE 44
32 THE SOUL OF OSIRIS. So she, my bride, my queen, So virginal, so keen, Swoons, while the moon-rays lean To fan their silver ship. No sleep, but precious kisses In those pale wildernesses, Mark the dead hours of night, No sleep so sweet as this is, Whose pulse of purple blisses Beats calm and cool and light. No life so fair with roses, No day so swift to close is ; No cushion so reposes Fair love so sweet and slight. Sleep greets the morn and takes us ; The wood that wonders makes us Soft noises heard above. The sunny snake forsakes us, The no…
1901 · PDF PAGE 68
56 THE SOUL OF OSIRIS. TO LAURA. ISTRESS, I pray thee, when the wind Exults upon the roaring sea, Come to my bosom, kissed and kind, And sleep upon the lips of me. Dream on my breast of quiet days, Kindled of slow absorbing fire. Sleep, while I ponder on the ways And secret paths of my desire. Dream, while my restless brain probes deep The mysteries of its magic power, The secrets of forgotten sleep, The birth of knowledge as a flower. Slow and divine thy gentle breath Woos my warm throat : my spirit flies Beyond the iron walls of death, And se…
1901 · PDF PAGE 69
…ife. Slip to the floor, I must not turn : There is a lion in the way ! The star of morning rise and burn : I seek the dim supernal day ! Sleep there, nor know me gone : sleep there And never wake, although God’s breath Catch thee at midmost of the prayer Of sleep—that so dream turns to death.
1901 · PDF PAGE 23
…range 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 Her glimmering limbs, when shadows creep Among blue tresses that escape The golden torque that binds her hair, Whose swarthy splendours drench the air. She comes, she comes, the spirit glances In quick delight to hold her kiss ; The fuming air shimmers and dances ; The moonlight’s trembling ecstasies C
1901 · PDF PAGE 56
…killed, Mine, at the price of my damnation deep, Mine, if you will, as once your glances willed ! Take me, or break me, slay or sooth to sleep, If only yours one hour, one perfect hour, Remembrance and despair and hope to steep In the infernal potion of that flower, My poisonous passion for your blood ! Behold ! How utterly I yield, how gladly dower Our sin with my own spirit’s quenchéd gold, Clothe love with my own soul’s immortal power, Give thee my body as a fire to hold— O love, no words, no songs—your breast my bower !
1901 · PDF PAGE 42
30 THE SOUL OF OSIRIS. The sleep of bird and flower Proclaims that Heaven has power To guard its gentlest child. The lover knows the hour, And goes with dew for dower To wed in woodland wild. The silvern grasses shake, And through the startled brake Glides the awakened snake, Untamable and mild. The song of stars ; the wail Of women wild and pale, Forlorn and not forsaken ; The tremulous nightingale ; The waters wan that fail By frost-love overtaken, Make sacred all the valley ; And softly, musically, The breezes lull and rally, The pine stirs …
1901 · PDF PAGE 105
THE HOLY PLACE. 93 “ Yet though he passed within And plunged within the deep, The seven palaces of sin, And slept the lonely sleep, Yet came He out alone : but then I thought I heard Them weep. “ He passed alone, above, Out of the Gates of Night ; Angels of Purity and Love Drew to my sound and sight. I heard Them cry that even there He fixed the eternal Light. “ I think beneath these groans, And laughters madness-born, Tears fell that might dissolve the stones That grind the accurséd corn. Beneath the deep, beneath the deep, may dwell the star …
1901 · PDF PAGE 51
…the world : We linger and laugh on the lea, The light of my spirit with me, Sharp limbs in close agony curled. The noise of the music of sleep, The breath of the wings of the night, The song of the magical deep, The sighs of the spirits that weep, Make murmur to tune our delight. Slow feet are our measures that move ; Swift songs are more soft than the breeze ; Our mouths are made mute for our love ; Our eyes are made soft as the dove ; We mingle and move as the seas. The light of the passionate dawn That kissed us, and would not awaken, Grew g…
1901 · PDF PAGE 19
…ossesses The magic ecstasy of these Mad maidens, tender as blue seas. Night spreads her yearning pinions, The baffled day sinks blind to sleep ; The evening breeze outswoons the sun’s Dead kisses to the swooning deep. Upsoars the moon ; the flashing steep Of heaven is fragrant for her feet ; The perfume of the grove is sweet As slumbering women furtive creep To bosoms where small kisses weep, And find in fervent dreams the kiss Most memoried of Artemis. Impenetrable pleasure dies Beneath the madness of new dreams ; The slow sweet breath is turn…
1901 · PDF PAGE 127
…OR. IBERTINE touches of small fingers creep Among my curls to-night : pale ghastly kisses, Like mournful ghosts roused from their ruined sleep By clamorous cries of murder. Strange abysses Loom in the vista keen eyes penetrate, Vague forecasts of immeasurable fate. O thou belovéd blood, that wells and weeps ! O thou belovéd mouth, that beats and bleeds ! O mystic bosom where some serpent sleeps, Sweet mockery of a thousand saintlier creeds ! Even I, that breathe your perfume, taste your breath, Know, even this hour, ye are not life, but death !…
1901 · PDF PAGE 17
…nfernal noon ; While the smooth incense, without breath, Spreads like some scented flower of death, Over the grove ; the lover’s boon Of sleep shall steal upon them soon, And lovers’ lips, from lips withdrawn, Seek dimmer bosoms till the dawn. Yet on the central altar lies The sacrament of kneaded bread, With blood made one, the sacrifice To those, the living, who are dead— Strange gods and goddesses, that shed
1901 · PDF PAGE 34
…fanged hatred in me glows ; I lust for her, and hell, and death ; I see that ghastly look, and yearn Toward the brands of her that burn. Sleep shuns me ; dreams divide the night (My parched throat thirsty for her veins), That she and I with deep delight Suck from death’s womb infernal pains, Whose fire consumes, destroys, devours Through night’s insatiable hours. And altogether filled with love, And altogether filled with sin, The little sparks and noises move About the softness of her skin. Her pleasures and her passions purr, For the delight …
1901 · PDF PAGE 38
26 THE SOUL OF OSIRIS. I crept like sleep toward the place That held for me her evil head ; I bent like sin above her face That dying she might kiss me dead. I whispered : “ Jezebel.” She turned, And her deep eyes with hatred burned. “ Ah ! prophet, come to mock at me And gloat on mine exceeding pain ? ” “ Nay, but to give my soul to thee, And have thee spit at me again ! ” She smiled—I know she smiled—she sighed, Bit my lips through, and drank, and died ! Her murders and her blasphemies, Her whoredoms, God has paid at last ; Upon my bosom clos…
1901 · PDF PAGE 32
…are The eyes of fiends ; I thought I heard An evil laugh, a mocking word. The gates swing open at The Name, Without a warder roused from sleep ; I pass, with face of burning flame, That is not quenched, although I weep. (For even my tears are tears of fire, For loathing, madness, and desire.) Ah God ! the traps for fervent feet ! The morrow beaconed, and I came By where the golden groves of wheat In summer glories fiercely flame ; To those white courts, by princes trod, Where Ahab sat, and mocked at God. Where Ahab sat, but lo ! I saw No king, …
1901 · PDF PAGE 132
…stay With white wings pointing where tired feet may climb : Even the pathway where shed blood ran deep To build red roses in the land of Sleep. O guardian of the pallid hours of night ! O tireless watcher of the smitten noon ! O sworded with the majesty of light, O girded with the glory of the moon ! Angel of absolute splendour ! Link of mine Old weary spirit with the All-Divine ! Ship that shalt carry me by many winds Driven on the limitless ocean ! Mighty sword, By which I force that barrier of the mind’s Miscomprehension of its own true lord…
1901 · PDF PAGE 72
…ues may keep Some other secret—some profounder deep Than this one echoed fear : the desert shows Its ghastly triumph—silence. There they sleep. “ There, brave and pure, there, true and strong, they stay Bleached in the desert, till the solemn day Of God’s revenge—none knoweth them : they rest Unburied, unremembered, unconfessed. What names of strength, of majesty, had they ? What suns are these gone down into the West ? “ Even I myself—my youth within me said : Go, seek this folly ; fear not for the dead, And God is with thine arm. I reached th…
1901 · PDF PAGE 128
… a woman’s eyes, I look beyond the miserable whirls Of foolish measures woven in the skies ; Beyond the thoughtless stars : beyond God’s sleep : Beyond the deep : beneath the deadly deep ! Infinite rings of luminous ether move At first amid the blackness that I seek : Infinite motion and amazing love Deaden the lustre of the night. I speak
1901 · PDF PAGE 77
…g complains. The bridge is bleeding and the river hears. Ah ! God ! I cannot live for pity deep Of that heart-quelling chant—I could not sleep Ever again to think of it. I close My hearing with my fingers. Gently goes A quivering foot above them as they weep— I weep, I also, as the river flows. Slowly the bridge subsides, and I am flung Deep in the tears and terrors never sung. I swim with sorrow bursting at my breast. Yet I am cleansed, and find some little rest. Still from my agonised unspeaking tongue Breaks : I must go, go onward to the que…
1901 · PDF PAGE 92
…d not to be denied ; You have taught me in perfection to be unsatisfied ; You have taught me midnight vigils, when you smiled in amorous sleep ; You have even taught a man the woman’s way to weep. So, even as you helped me, blindly, against your will,