Part 3

There knocked One nightly at the harlot’s house; Wan was His mouth as kisses without love. His groping fingers followed tremulous The winding of her delicate thin veins; He traced the waxen contour of her breast, And then, as baffled in some strange pursuit, Drew her to Him in weariest embrace; And, as she shuddered in His grasp, He watched, Still passionless, the working of her throat. The woman’s cheek grew crimson as He gazed, But He, a scowling and disgruntled guest, Rose white and famished from her body’s feast. Yet one night, pausing half-way, He turned back, Lured by the wraith of long-departed hope; And then He asked of her a monstrous thing. The strumpet blanched and, rising from the couch, Spat in His face. Straightway the Stranger’s eye Blazoned exultant with the pilgrim’s joy When ends the quest. He lifted up His hands In quiet benediction, and a light Miraculous upon His forehead shone. But she, being blind, still cursed Him, and reviled: “Albeit I sell my body for very shame I am a woman, not a beast; but thou----” “And I,” quoth he, “a Seeker after God....”

ATTAR OF SONG

Like Lilith, mother Lilith, I have wound About my heart the serpent of desire. A purple galleon on a sea of fire Has borne my footsteps to forbidden ground, Where glittering with corruption of all time, Death in its shadow, dreams the Upas tree; But with its dew, as sugar sucks the bee, I have enriched the honeycomb of rhyme.

A riot of strange roses is my life-- Pale as Narcissus gazing wistfully, And crimson red as the great Rose of Strife Upon the zone of Menelaus’ wife,-- Distilled by love with lyric alchemy, Heart of my heart, into one song for thee.

THE BURIED CITY

My heart is like a city of the gay Reared on the ruins of a perished one, Wherein my dead loves cower from the sun, White-swathed like kings, the Pharaohs of a day. Within the buried city stirs no sound Save for the bat, forgetful of the rod, Perched on the knee of some deserted god, And for the groan of rivers underground.

Stray not, my Love, ’mid the sarcophagi, Tempt not the silence ... for the fates are deep, Lest all the dreamers deeming doomsday nigh Leap forth in terror from their haunted sleep; And, like the peal of an accursèd bell, Thy voice call ghosts of dead things back from hell!

TRIUMPHATRIX

As some great monarch in triumphal train Holds in his thrall an hundred captive kings, Guard thou the loves of all my vanished springs To wait as handmaids on thy sweet disdain. And thou shalt wear their tresses like bright rings, For their defeat perpetuates thy reign! With thy imperious girlhood vie in vain The pallid hosts of all old poignant things.

Place on thy brow the mystic diadem With women’s faces cunningly embossed, Whereon each memory glitters like a gem; But mark that mine were regal loves that lost And loved like queens, nor haggled for the cost-- And having conquered, oh be kind to them!

AT NIGHTFALL

Sweet is the highroad when the skylarks call, When we and Love go rambling through the land. But shall we still walk gaily hand in hand At the road’s turning and the twilight’s fall? Then darkness shall divide us like a wall, And uncouth evil nightbirds flap their wings; The solitude of all created things Will creep upon us shuddering like a pall.

This is the knowledge I have wrung from pain: We, yea, all lovers, are not one, but twain, Each by strange wisps to strange abysses drawn. But through the black immensity of night Love’s little lantern, as a glow-worm’s bright, May lead our steps to some stupendous dawn.

FINALE

How changed the house is when not Love is there! Your deep eyes vex me like some magic book I cannot ponder. Nay, I will not brook The weariness of your too golden hair! Hush! Was not that the creaking of a stair? Was it Love’s footfall or the wind? I look In vain for him in every hidden nook-- There is no sound of laughter anywhere....

Ah, sweet, he has forsaken us, not base, But heedless, boyish--and the world is wide! He sees not now your sorrow-haunted face, Nor feels the dagger that has pierced my side, And how all joy is vanished from the place As from a house in which a child has died.

THE LOVE SEAL

A silver sea beneath the stars-- We paid to love his mystic rites, And from thy lips I kissed the scars Of fiercer joys and stranger nights.

What redder lips, what mouth of fate, Till Buddha noddeth near the goal, Shall, stronger still, obliterate My one night’s madness from thy soul?

I brand thee through eternity, Upon thy blood I set my seal, And boy and girl and change and sea Cannot wipe out my mark or heal.

While the great life-snake sheds its coat, I must rehearse my tragic part, To kiss the love-wounds from thy throat, And burn the iron in thy--heart.

RESPITE

(_For M. E. V._)

I shall not, dead, miss love’s sublimities, The pageantry, the passion, and the smart, But only this, the sweet proximities Of flesh to flesh, of heart-beat to the heart.

I shall not, dead, remember anything, The sun, the moon, the waters, and the lands, The wild adventure of my journeying: Only the weary flutter of white hands.

Let earth the maggot feed upon my brain, Let me forget the rime, the rune, the rose, If but this vision to the end remain: A little body, birdlike, nestling close.

Of all God’s deeds the foulest deed is this: Though my heart aches, though all my manhood squirms, When I am dead, your touch, your mouth, your kiss Dear Love, will seem no sweeter than the worm’s.

For hearts and worms and lovers’ ecstasy To life’s Mad Master, on invention bent, Are but the ashes of his alchemy That he discards in his experiment.

There is no lodestar in this lonely sea, No ghost of any harbor for my quest, Save Love’s eyes shining tenderly, Save for the respite of your breast, And--maybe--rest.

DR. FAUST’S DESCENT FROM HEAVEN

I

Though your womb be the mother of bliss, O Earth, and the mother of woes, Though your large hands be full of the strange gifts of life, the kiss, and the worm, and the rose, The thunders that break from the sky of fate, and the flash in the pan, To me they are empty, for I know all things encompassed of man. The devious desires that crouch through the brain like monsters that nest in the sea, Pass--pageants of ghosts--through the luminous eyes of one who is dear to me. The other--all pangs and delights of the visible world and its quests, Are engraved in the exquisite curve of her throat and the hieroglyphs of her breasts. One rides on the wingèd chimaera of dreams through aeons purple and red, The other--like new-mown grass is the scent of her flesh in my bed. What can you give me of joy, Earth, what of bitter and sweet? _I have loved Helen of Troy and the blonde Marguerite._

II

Straightforth with the Magical Seal I knocked at the musical gates Of Heaven. The angels grew pale, or swooned in the arms of their mates. “I have sounded all chords in the harp of man’s life,” I said, “It is I, Doctor Faust. Now give me your manna for bread.” And they gave me their manna to eat, and drink, and I drank thereof, But they tasted as ashes and stale in my mouth after the kisses of love. So I spake up to God: “In your realm, O Lord, there is nothing to do For a man such as I. Let me pass. T’were different if I could be you! To play with omnipotence, curb lightnings, and summon new worlds at my will-- Yet I stretch out no impious hand for your kingdom. I, too, have my fill. Though the suns be your toy, of Love’s breasts have I joy, though the prayer of the saints be your meat, _Have you loved Helen of Troy and the blonde Marguerite?_”

III

Into Inferno I stalked to the stream where sulphur and brimstone well Through lonelinesses more deep than the Florentine’s Frozen Hell. I came to the nethermost place where Satan sate in splendor alone, The writhing limbs of anguished men were the pillars of his throne. His court was paved with dead men’s hopes stamped like designs into mud, From thousand scarlet candles came the drip of human blood. In his eyes were all the tortures of all nights barren and fever-tossed Of all who loved and won and all who loved and lost. And I grasped the hand of the Prince of Hell: “O brother once divine, Lo, all your thorns have pierced my side and all your hells were mine. Thorns of flame that destroy, remorse, with slow but infallible feet: _I have loved Helen of Troy and the blonde Marguerite_.”

IV

From the lesser gods to their masters, Time and Eternity, I turned--to crave the single boon that they could give to me. “I am the Pilgrim of Passion who ever must choose and grieve Between the earth-born daughters of Lilith and of Eve. For I have lost my way twixt Heaven and Hell and Earth, Give me oblivion,” I said, “or grant me another birth! Grant me another encasement where the flesh shall be the soul, Where good shall be as evil and pole as anti-pole. Let Lilith and her sister, both back into night be thrust, Fashion Woman anew out of their astral dust. Dreams of impossible joy and impossible loveliness meet _When beautiful Helen of Troy shall be one with the blonde Marguerite_.”

MAN TO HIS MAKER

From the white ulcer of thy snow, From the green leprosy of spring, Preserve us, Lord, whose mercies sting, Whose loaded dice win every throw.

Foredoomed to perish in the strife With maggots fattened by thy breath, Free us from life’s mad lover--death, And save us from death’s nightmare--life.

Blind microscopic molluscs we, Beneath thy scorn that spawn and squirm, Redeem us from thy gloating worm And from the consciousness of thee.

If play we must this sorry role For thy amusement, spare the cant: Make man equal of the ant, Celestial Sadist! Take the soul.

And crush us back into the sod, Whose fate is futile utterly, Save as a prank of destiny Played by a bored and bilious god.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

The drop-caps and uppercase letters from the beginning of each poem were removed for clarity purposes.

Spelling errors and typos were corrected.

A Table of Contents was created for this edition.

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.