the bed, with feet erect as a bow,
Like the prow of a boat, his head laid back like the
   stern
Of a ship that stands in a shadowy sea of snow
With frozen rigging, she saw him; she drooped like
   a fern
Refolding, she slipped to the floor as a ghost-white
   peony slips
            When the thread clips.

Soft she lay as a shed flower fallen, nor heard
The ominous entry, nor saw the other love,
The dark, the grave-eyed mistress who thus dared
At such an hour to lay her claim, above
A stricken wife, so sunk in oblivion, bowed
            With misery, no more proud.

III

The stranger's hair was shorn like a lad's dark poll
And pale her ivory face: her eyes would fail
In silence when she looked: for all the whole
Darkness of failure was in them, without avail.
Dark in indomitable failure, she who had lost
            Now claimed the host,

She softly passed the sorrowful flower shed
In blonde and white on the floor, nor even turned
Her head aside, but straight towards the bed
Moved with slow feet, and her eyes' flame steadily
   burned.
She looked at him as he lay with banded cheek,
            And she started to speak

Softly: "I knew it would come to this," she said,
"I knew that some day, soon, I should find you thus.
So I did not fight you. You went your way instead
Of coming mine—and of the two of us
I died the first, I, in the after-life
            Am now your wife."

IV

"'Twas I whose fingers did draw up the young
Plant of your body: to me you looked e'er sprung
The secret of the moon within your eyes!
My mouth you met before your fine red mouth
Was set to song—and never your song denies
            My love, till you went south."

"'Twas I who placed the bloom of manhood on
Your youthful smoothness: I fleeced where fleece
   was none
Your fervent limbs with flickers and tendrils of new
Knowledge; I set your heart to its stronger beat;
I put my strength upon you, and I threw
            My life at your feet."

"But I whom the years had reared to be your bride,
Who for years was sun for your shivering, shade for
   your sweat,
Who for one strange year was as a bride to you—you
   set me aside
With all the old, sweet things of our youth;—and
   never yet
Have I ceased to grieve that I was not great enough
            To defeat your baser stuff."

V

"But you are given back again to me
Who have kept intact for you your virginity.
Who for the rest of life walk out of care,
Indifferent here of myself, since I am gone
Where you are gone, and you and I out there
            Walk now as one."

"Your widow am I, and only I. I dream
God bows his head and grants me this supreme
Pure look of your last dead face, whence now is gone
The mobility, the panther's gambolling,
And all your being is given to me, so none
            Can mock my struggling."

"And now at last I kiss your perfect face,
Perfecting now our unfinished, first embrace.
Your young hushed look that then saw God ablaze
In every bush, is given you back, and we
Are met at length to finish our rest of days
            In a unity."

HEIMWEH

FAR-OFF the lily-statues stand white-ranked in the
    garden at home.
Would God they were shattered quickly, the cattle
    would tread them out in the loam.
I wish the elder trees in flower could suddenly heave,
    and burst
The walls of the house, and nettles puff out from
    the hearth at which I was nursed.

It stands so still in the hush composed of trees and
    inviolate peace,
The home of my fathers, the place that is mine, my
    fate and my old increase.
And now that the skies are falling, the world is
    spouting in fountains of dirt,
I would give my soul for the homestead to fall with
    me, go with me, both in one hurt.

DEBACLE

THE trees in trouble because of autumn,
  And scarlet berries falling from the bush,
And all the myriad houseless seeds
  Loosing hold in the wind's insistent push

Moan softly with autumnal parturition,
  Poor, obscure fruits extruded out of light
Into the world of shadow, carried down
  Between the bitter knees of the after-night.

Bushed in an uncouth ardour, coiled at core
  With a knot of life that only bliss can unravel,
Fall all the fruits most bitterly into earth
  Bitterly into corrosion bitterly travel.

What is it internecine that is locked,
  By very fierceness into a quiescence
Within the rage? We shall not know till it burst
  Out of corrosion into new florescence.

Nay, but how tortured is the frightful seed
  The spark intense within it, all without
Mordant corrosion gnashing and champing hard
  For ruin on the naked small redoubt.

Bitter, to fold the issue, and make no sally;
  To have the mystery, but not go forth;
To bear, but retaliate nothing, given to save
  The spark in storms of corrosion, as seeds from
     the north.

The sharper, more horrid the pressure, the harder
     the heart
  That saves the blue grain of eternal fire
Within its quick, committed to hold and wait
  And suffer unheeding, only forbidden to expire.

NARCISSUS

WHERE the minnows trace
A glinting web quick hid in the gloom of the brook,
When I think of the place
And remember the small lad lying intent to look
Through the shadowy face
At the little fish thread-threading the watery nook—

It seems to me
The woman you are should be nixie, there is a pool
Where we ought to be.
You undine-clear and pearly, soullessly cool
And waterly
The pool for my limbs to fathom, my soul's last
    school.

Narcissus
Ventured so long ago in the deeps of reflection.
Illyssus
Broke the bounds and beyond!—Dim recollection
Of fishes
Soundlessly moving in heaven's other direction!

Be
Undine towards the waters, moving back;
For me
A pool! Put off the soul you've got, oh lack
Your human self immortal; take the watery track.

AUTUMN SUNSHINE

THE sun sets out the autumn crocuses
  And fills them up a pouring measure
  Of death-producing wine, till treasure
Runs waste down their chalices.

All, all Persephone's pale cups of mould
  Are on the board, are over-filled;
  The portion to the gods is spilled;
Now, mortals all, take hold!

The time is now, the wine-cup full and full
  Of lambent heaven, a pledging-cup;
  Let now all mortal men take up
The drink, and a long, strong pull.

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