me
Naked, exposed on the bush.

I, on the bush of the globe,
Like a newly-naked berry, shrink
Disclosed: but I also am prowling
As well in the scents that slink

Abroad: I in this naked berry
Of flesh that stands dismayed on the bush;
And I in the stealthy, brindled odours
Prowling about the lush

And acrid night of autumn;
My soul, along with the rout,
Rank and treacherous, prowling,
Disseminated out.

For the night, with a great breath intaken,
Has taken my spirit outside
Me, till I reel with disseminated consciousness,
Like a man who has died.

At the same time I stand exposed
Here on the bush of the globe,
A newly-naked berry of flesh
For the stars to probe.

THE INHERITANCE

SINCE you did depart
Out of my reach, my darling,
Into the hidden,
I see each shadow start
With recognition, and I
Am wonder-ridden.

I am dazed with the farewell,
But I scarcely feel your loss.
You left me a gift
Of tongues, so the shadows tell
Me things, and silences toss
Me their drift.

You sent me a cloven fire
Out of death, and it burns in the draught
Of the breathing hosts,
Kindles the darkening pyre
For the sorrowful, till strange brands waft
Like candid ghosts.

Form after form, in the streets
Waves like a ghost along,
Kindled to me;
The star above the house-top greets
Me every eve with a long
Song fierily.

All day long, the town
Glimmers with subtle ghosts
Going up and down
In a common, prison-like dress;
But their daunted looking flickers
To me, and I answer, Yes!

So I am not lonely nor sad
Although bereaved of you,
My little love.
I move among a kinsfolk clad
With words, but the dream shows through
As they move.

SILENCE

SINCE I lost you I am silence-haunted,
  Sounds wave their little wings
A moment, then in weariness settle
  On the flood that soundless swings.

Whether the people in the street
  Like pattering ripples go by,
Or whether the theatre sighs and sighs
  With a loud, hoarse sigh:

Or the wind shakes a ravel of light
  Over the dead-black river,
Or night's last echoing
  Makes the daybreak shiver:

I feel the silence waiting
  To take them all up again
In its vast completeness, enfolding
  The sound of men.

LISTENING

I LISTEN to the stillness of you,
   My dear, among it all;
I feel your silence touch my words as I talk,
   And take them in thrall.

My words fly off a forge
   The length of a spark;
I see the night-sky easily sip them
   Up in the dark.

The lark sings loud and glad,
   Yet I am not loth
That silence should take the song and the bird
   And lose them both.

A train goes roaring south,
   The steam-flag flying;
I see the stealthy shadow of silence
   Alongside going.

And off the forge of the world,
   Whirling in the draught of life,
Go sparks of myriad people, filling
   The night with strife.

Yet they never change the darkness
   Or blench it with noise;
Alone on the perfect silence
   The stars are buoys.

BROODING GRIEF

A YELLOW leaf from the darkness
Hops like a frog before me.
Why should I start and stand still?

I was watching the woman that bore me
Stretched in the brindled darkness
Of the sick-room, rigid with will
To die: and the quick leaf tore me
Back to this rainy swill
Of leaves and lamps and traffic mingled before me.

LOTUS HURT BY THE COLD

How many times, like lotus lilies risen
   Upon the surface of a river, there
   Have risen floating on my blood the rare
Soft glimmers of my hope escaped from prison.

So I am clothed all over with the light
   And sensitive beautiful blossoming of passion;
   Till naked for her in the finest fashion
The flowers of all my mud swim into sight.

And then I offer all myself unto
   This woman who likes to love me: but she turns
   A look of hate upon the flower that burns
To break and pour her out its precious dew.

And slowly all the blossom shuts in pain,
   And all the lotus buds of love sink over
   To die unopened: when my moon-faced lover,
Kind on the weight of suffering, smiles again.

MALADE

THE sick grapes on the chair by the bed lie prone;
    at the window
The tassel of the blind swings gently, tapping the
    pane,
As a little wind comes in.
The room is the hollow rind of a fruit, a gourd
Scooped out and dry, where a spider,
Folded in its legs as in a bed,
Lies on the dust, watching where is nothing to see
    but twilight and walls.

And if the day outside were mine! What is the day
But a grey cave, with great grey spider-cloths
    hanging
Low from the roof, and the wet dust falling softly
    from them
Over the wet dark rocks, the houses, and over
The spiders with white faces, that scuttle on the
    floor of the cave!
I am choking with creeping, grey confinedness.

But somewhere birds, beside a lake of light, spread
    wings
Larger than the largest fans, and rise in a stream
    upwards
And upwards on the sunlight that rains invisible,
So that the birds are like one wafted feather,
Small and ecstatic suspended over a vast spread
    country.

LIAISON

A BIG bud of moon hangs out of the twilight,
  Star-spiders spinning their thread
Hang high suspended, withouten respite
  Watching us overhead.

Come then under the trees, where the leaf-cloths
  Curtain us in so dark
That here we're safe from even the ermin-moth's
  Flitting remark.

Here in this swarthy, secret tent,
  Where black boughs flap the ground,
You shall draw the thorn from my discontent,
  Surgeon me sound.

This rare, rich night! For in here
  Under the yew-tree tent
The darkness is loveliest where I could sear
  You like frankincense into scent.

Here not even the stars can spy us,
  Not even the white moths write
With their little pale signs on the wall, to try us
  And set us affright.

Kiss but then the dust from off my lips,
  But draw the turgid pain
From my breast to your bosom, eclipse
  My soul again.

Waste me not, I beg you, waste
  Not the inner night:
Taste, oh taste and let me taste
  The core of delight.