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… is for me the avatar of sin, Sidonia the Sorceress. The one unpardonable wickedness, Strange serpent-blasphemies, are curled within The heart of her Hell gives me to possess. Her hair is fastened with a dagger thin; A dead man’s heart is woven with each tress. I murdered Christ before my lips could win Sidonia the Sorceress.
…es Not unfamiliar, through exulting gates— “ Lift up your heads,” I hear the angels cry ; “ Be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors. A child-heart seeks the Lover of the Child!” O meek and holy Jesus, hath Thy heart Yearned unto me, Thy maiden? For I knew A bliss so pregnant with the unforeseen As brought me to the very feet of Christ, Weeping. How clouded that mysterious Passion! JI fell a-weeping in my bed, Forgetting, or not knowing. For a fire Too perfect for my sinful soul to touch Gathered me closely in itself, to hide Its utter glory from me…
… deadly as an asp. ULRIC. Wear me no more with this anxiety. CORA. How can I speak? For this will ruin us. ULRIC. Unspoken, I demand thy heart of thee. CORA. My heart is broken. This will murder thine. ULRIC. Kill, but not torture! Let me know the truth.
…und a slave To this wild passion. It will eat me up. CORA. You cannot guess the horror that you speak. I tell you, if I know your golden heart, This detestation of yourself shall cry The cry of Edipus—“ I have profaned——” ULRIC. What sphinx more cruel? What new C:dipus ? You riddle, Cora, and it breaks my heart. [He sinks exhausted. (Rallying.) By God, I swear to you no lie shall keep Its Dead Sea bar against our marrying. CORA. The truth! Thetruth! Thetruth! I am indeed That whore I told you. That makes nothing here. I am the mother of thy bas…
…ou speak of love! You must have guessed I meant to question you, And smoothed the passage to my modesty. CORA, with bitter sorrow at her heart. You make me very glad. Yes, yes, indeed, , Love is my meaning. Does it shame me much To talk so openly of love to you ? But I am old enough to be—to be ULRIC. My wife! O Cora, I have loved you so! My heart is like a fountain of the sea. I burn, I tremble; in my veins there swims A torrid ecstasy of madness. Ah! Ah God! I kiss you, kiss you! O you faint!
CONVENTIONAL WICKEDNESS EFORE the altar of Famine and Desire, The Two in One, a golden woman stands, Holding a heart in her ensanguine hands, The nightly victim of her whore’s attire. Quick sobs of lust instead of prayers inspire Some oracle of Death. From many lands Come many worshippers. Their fading brands Rekindle from the sacrificial fire. Before the altar of Plenty, Love, and Peace, Stand purer priests in bloodless sacrifice, And quiet hymns of happiness are heard. _ Here sound no hatreds and no ecstasies; Here no polluted sacrament of Vi…
…erest resurrection of the dead. All petty wishes: at the fountain-head, A dead girl’s whisper—I have stooped and pressed My ear unto her heart—her soul confessed That none of life her joy relinquishéd. ““T died the moment when you tore away The bleeding veil of my virginity. The pain was sudden—and the joy was long. Persists that triumphs, keenly, utterly! Write, then, in thy mysterious book of song: ‘Death chisels marble where life moulded clay.’”
…ps to thine Eternal House! Rest my vain head on thine Eternal Breast! Spread wide the wings divine Over this shadowy shrine, Where in my heart their hovering lendeth Light! Bend down the amazing Face Of sorrow and of grace, Share the deep vigil of thine eremite! So let the sighing breath Draw on the Hour of Death, Whence wakeneth The Spirit of the Dawn, begotten of the night.
…w, I feel the Godhead set above me, My own high part in His celestial sphere; In life, in death, the universe cries—love me !— God in my heart, and all the world is dear!
…- pestuous night, Our song is as light! In the tumult of manifold fire, Multitudinous mutable feet That dance to an infinite lyre On the heart of the world as they beat, In the flowers of the bride of the flame, in the warrior Lord of the Fire, There burns our desire! AMENHATEP. Cry now, bewail the broken house, bewail The ruin of the land; cry out on Fate! CHORUS. Slow wheels of unbegotten hate And changeless circles of desire, Formless creations uncreate, Swift fountains of ungathered fire, The misty counterpoise of time, Dim winds of ocean a…
…eginning of our talk. MADELINE. Say on! CORA, meaningly. Much less you understand the love I bear To Ulric! MADELINE gzves a little cry. Heart of Christ! it cannot be! | CORA. No, child; I tricked you. Is your secret out ?
…ost formidable Night, Gathered its garments, drew itself apart, Gaunt limbs appear athwart the coprolite Veil of deep agony, display the heart; Even as a gloomy sea, Wherein dead fishes be, Poisonous things, nameless; the eightfold Fear, Misshapen crab and worm, The intolerable sperm, Lewd dragons slime-built stagnant, the foul mere Crawled, moved, gave tongue, The essential soul of dung That lived and stung; That spoke: no word that living head may hear. Even as a veil imaging Beauty’s eyes Behind, lifted, lets flash the maiden face; So that d…
…apped Love’s manacle! O Murderess of the hateful eyes! O and you fix them on me, your lips curse now—'tis fitter! Snarl on! eat out your heart with the poison that is its blood. Speak! and her lips move now with blasphemies cruel and bitter. Slow the words creep forth as a sleepy and deadly flood. They glitter, those Satanic eyes! ‘“‘Beast! I gave you my soul and my body to all your lust!
28 THE MOTHER'S TRAGEDY MADELINE. O Heart of Jesus! Thou art bleeding still ! This was Thy true disciple. Leave her not, Sweet Jesus, in this madness. Who is this ? [Enter ULRIC; he carries a razor. ULRIC. I have a lovely bride at last, my dear! A phantom with intolerable eyes Came close and whispered: I am Wisdom’s self, Thy spouse from everlasting. Mortal king Of my immortal self, I claim thy love! So, we are wedded close. Justice demands The punishment of this accurséd one, Originator of the cruel crimes My mother-mistress carried to their c…
…ed, And on my bark. I know not how yon world may prove, nor whither Hermes conduct me to what farther end. Yet if these bays abide, this heart not wither, It cannot be I shall not find a friend. Some pale immortal lover draw me thither! To kiss me bend! Moreover, as Apollo re-arisen Flames, with a roaring of the morning sea, Up from the stricken gray, the iron - barred prison, Flashes his face again upon the lea, And diamond dews the woodland Ones bedizen ; So—so for me!
…tigress glides, Strange laughing devilry abides Its hour to poison. How they gloat, The fiends, upon her lips and throat! They touch her heart, they speer her eyes, They linger on the lovely prize! O dead she thought them! It is written: ‘‘ Eve’s heel is by the serpent bitten, His head she bruises.” No indeed! Not woman, but the woman’s seed! Hark! in the cloak of “ Love of Truth” They whisper “ Memory of Youth”; And, mindful of the deadliest sin, Hint: ‘“ Sinful woman, look within!” CORA. Ah me! if she could look within a glass With spells and…
…remember, One leap toward the knees and destinies, Where shine Her lips like flames, Her breasts like amber, Like moons Her eyes. For my heart turns—ah still!—in Sorrow’s traces, Where sad chill footprints pash the sodden leaves ; Where ranged around me are the cold, grey faces; Fallen on the stubble are the rotten sheaves; The vicious ghosts abound; and Chronos’ paces No soul deceives.
EPILOGUE 109 Yet my heart looks to Madness as its mother, Remembering Who once caught me by the well ; And the strange loves of that misshapen Other, The feast of blood, the cold enchanted dell, Where fire was filtered up through earth to smother, Sick scents of hell. And that wild night when vine-leaves wooed and clustered Round my wild limbs, and like a woman I went Over the mountains — how the Northwind blustered !— And slew with them the beast, and was content. The madness. Oh! the dreadful light that lustred The main event. Ay! the wild wh…
…A. Rest, sunny head! A little while to sleep, And then—perhaps the Mother in a dream May comfort you. A woman's love is this To have one heart, an undivided love; But Hers—division in the universe Makes multiple each part. Sweet Madeline, Believe me, She will come to maiden dreams, Bestow Her peace, and so direct the life That is not unto God unconsecrate For being dedicated unto love! [22z¢ MADELINE.
…y God’s own curses dog me into hell, And mine own life perpetuate itself Through all the ages of eternity. Amen! Amen! Come, Cora, to my heart! [He stoops to embrace her. Horror and madness catch him, and he runs about the room wildly, crying for CORA, whom he cannot see. MADELINE enters. MADELINE. O Cora! Cora! Ulric! Help! Help! Help! ULRIC regains his self-control. Hush! Allis well! I cannot tell you now. Some news—a letter—it has frightened her. MADELINE. But you were crying aS a madman would.