the palfrey trode.

Till a beggar spoke to Joseph,
But looked into her eyes;
So she turned, and said to her husband:
"I give, whoever denies."

SIXTH PART

SHE gave on the open heather
Beneath bare judgment stars,
And she dreamed of her children and Joseph,
And the isles, and her men, and her scars.

And she woke to distil the berries
The beggar had gathered at night,
Whence he drew the curious liquors
He held in delight.

He gave her no crown of flowers,
No child and no palfrey slow,
Only led her through harsh, hard places
Where strange winds blow.

She follows his restless wanderings
Till night when, by the fire's red stain,
Her face is bent in the bitter steam
That comes from the flowers of pain.

Then merciless and ruthless
He takes the flame-wild drops
To the town, and tries to sell them
With the market-crops.

So she follows the cruel journey
That ends not anywhere,
And dreams, as she stirs the mixing-pot,
She is brewing hope from despair.

TRIER

FIRST MORNING

THE night was a failure but why not—?

In the darkness with the pale dawn seething at the window through the black frame I could not be free, not free myself from the past, those others— and our love was a confusion, there was a horror, you recoiled away from me.

Now, in the morning
As we sit in the sunshine on the seat by the little
     shrine,
And look at the mountain-walls,
Walls of blue shadow,
And see so near at our feet in the meadow
Myriads of dandelion pappus
Bubbles ravelled in the dark green grass
Held still beneath the sunshine—

It is enough, you are near—
The mountains are balanced,
The dandelion seeds stay half-submerged in the
     grass;
You and I together
We hold them proud and blithe
On our love.
They stand upright on our love,
Everything starts from us,
We are the source.

BEUERBERG

"AND OH— THAT THE MAN I AM MIGHT CEASE TO BE—"

No, now I wish the sunshine would stop, and the white shining houses, and the gay red flowers on the balconies and the bluish mountains beyond, would be crushed out between two valves of darkness; the darkness falling, the darkness rising, with muffled sound obliterating everything.

I wish that whatever props up the walls of light would fall, and darkness would come hurling heavily down, and it would be thick black dark for ever. Not sleep, which is grey with dreams, nor death, which quivers with birth, but heavy, sealing darkness, silence, all immovable.

What is sleep? It goes over me, like a shadow over a hill, but it does not alter me, nor help me. And death would ache still, I am sure; it would be lambent, uneasy. I wish it would be completely dark everywhere, inside me, and out, heavily dark utterly.

WOLFRATSHAUSEN

SHE LOOKS BACK

THE pale bubbles
The lovely pale-gold bubbles of the globe-flowers
In a great swarm clotted and single
Went rolling in the dusk towards the river
To where the sunset hung its wan gold cloths;
And you stood alone, watching them go,
And that mother-love like a demon drew you
   from me
Towards England.

Along the road, after nightfall,
Along the glamorous birch-tree avenue
Across the river levels
We went in silence, and you staring to England.

So then there shone within the jungle darkness
Of the long, lush under-grass, a glow-worm's
   sudden
Green lantern of pure light, a little, intense, fusing
   triumph,
White and haloed with fire-mist, down in the
   tangled darkness.

Then you put your hand in mine again, kissed me,
   and we struggled to be together.
And the little electric flashes went with us, in the
   grass,
Tiny lighthouses, little souls of lanterns, courage
   burst into an explosion of green light
Everywhere down in the grass, where darkness was
   ravelled in darkness.

Still, the kiss was a touch of bitterness on my mouth
Like salt, burning in.
And my hand withered in your hand.
For you were straining with a wild heart, back,
   back again,
Back to those children you had left behind, to all
   the æons of the past.
And I was here in the under-dusk of the Isar.

At home, we leaned in the bedroom window
Of the old Bavarian Gasthaus,
And the frogs in the pool beyond thrilled with
   exuberance,
Like a boiling pot the pond crackled with happiness,
Like a rattle a child spins round for joy, the night
   rattled
With the extravagance of the frogs,
And you leaned your cheek on mine,
And I suffered it, wanting to sympathise.

At last, as you stood, your white gown falling from
   your breasts,
You looked into my eyes, and said: "But this is
   joy!"
I acquiesced again.
But the shadow of lying was in your eyes,
The mother in you, fierce as a murderess, glaring
   to England,
Yearning towards England, towards your young
   children,
Insisting upon your motherhood, devastating.

Still, the joy was there also, you spoke truly,
The joy was not to be driven off so easily;
Stronger than fear or destructive mother-love, it
   stood flickering;
The frogs helped also, whirring away.
Yet how I have learned to know that look in your
   eyes
Of horrid sorrow!
How I know that glitter of salt, dry, sterile,
   sharp, corrosive salt!
Not tears, but white sharp brine
Making hideous your eyes.

I have seen it, felt it in my mouth, my throat, my
   chest, my belly,
Burning of powerful salt, burning, eating through
   my defenceless nakedness.
I have been thrust into white, sharp crystals,
Writhing, twisting, superpenetrated.

Ah, Lot's Wife, Lot's Wife!
The pillar of salt, the whirling, horrible column
   of salt, like a waterspout
That has enveloped me!
Snow of salt, white, burning, eating salt
In which I have writhed.

Lot's Wife!—Not Wife, but Mother.
I have learned to curse your motherhood,
You pillar of salt accursed.
I have cursed motherhood because of you,
Accursed, base motherhood!

I long for the time to come, when the curse against
   you will have gone out of my heart.
But it has not gone yet.
Nevertheless, once, the frogs, the globe-flowers of
   Bavaria, the glow-worms
Gave me sweet lymph against the salt-burns,
There is a kindness in the very rain.

Therefore, even in the hour of my deepest, pas-
   sionate malediction
I try to remember it is also well between us.
That you are with me in the end.
That you never look quite back; nine-tenths, ah,
   more
You look round over your shoulder;
But never quite