Young Adventure Part 8

All is purity, without color, without stir, without pa.s.sion.

Suddenly a peac.o.c.k screams.

My heart shocks and stops; Sweat, cold corpse-sweat Covers my rigid body.

My hair stands on end. I cannot stir. I cannot speak.

It is terror, terror that is walking the pale sick gardens And the eyeless face no man may see and live!

Ah-h-h-h-h!

Father, Father, wake! wake and save me!

In his corner all is shadow.

Dead things creep from the ground.

It is so long ago that she died, so long ago!

Dust crushes her, earth holds her, mold grips her.

Fiends, do you not know that she is dead?...

"Let us dance the pavon!" she said; the waxlights glittered like swords on the polished floor.

Twinkling on jewelled snuffboxes, beaming savagely from the cra.s.s gold of candelabra, From the white shoulders of girls and the white powdered wigs of men...

All life was that dance.

The mocking, resistless current, The beauty, the pa.s.sion, the perilous madness -- As she took my hand, released it and spread her dresses like petals, Turning, swaying in beauty, A lily, bowed by the rain, -- Moonlight she was, and her body of moonlight and foam, And her eyes stars.

Oh the dance has a pattern!

But the clear grace of her thrilled through the notes of the viols, Tremulous, pleading, escaping, immortal, untamed, And, as we ended, She blew me a kiss from her hand like a drifting white blossom -- And the stars.h.i.+ne was gone; and she fled like a bird up the stair.

Underneath the window a peac.o.c.k screams, And claws click, sc.r.a.pe Like little lacquered boots on the rough stone.

Oh the long fantasy of the kiss; the ceaseless hunger, ceaselessly, divinely appeased!

The aching presence of the beloved's beauty!

The wisdom, the incense, the brightness!

Once more on the ice-bright floor they danced the pavon But I turned to the garden and her from the lighted candles.

Softly I trod the lush gra.s.s between the black hedges of box.

Softly, for I should take her unawares and catch her arms, And embrace her, dear and startled.

By the arbor all the moonlight flowed in silver And her head was on his breast.

She did not scream or shudder When my sword was where her head had lain In the quiet moonlight; But turned to me with one pale hand uplifted, All her satins fiery with the stars.h.i.+ne, Nacreous, s.h.i.+mmering, weeping, iridescent, Like the quivering plumage of a peac.o.c.k...

Then her head drooped and I gripped her hair, Oh soft, scented cloud across my fingers! -- Bending her white neck back....

Blood writhed on my hands; I trod in blood....

Stupidly agaze At that crumpled heap of silk and moonlight, Where like twitching pinions, an arm twisted, Palely, and was still As the face of chalk.

The buhl clock strikes.

Thirty years. Christ, thirty years!

Agony. Agony.

Something stirs in the window, Shattering the moonlight.

White wings fan.

Father, Father!

All its plumage fiery with the stars.h.i.+ne, Nacreous, s.h.i.+mmering, weeping, iridescent, It drifts across the floor and mounts the bed, To the tap of little satin shoes.

Gazing with infernal eyes.

Its quick beak thrusting, rending, devil's crimson...

Screams, great tortured screams shake the dark canopy.

The light flickers, the shadow in the corner stirs; The wax face lifts; the eyes open.

A thin trickle of blood worms darkly against the vast red coverlet and spreads to a pool on the floor.

Colors

(For D. M. C.)

The little man with the vague beard and guise Pulled at the wicket. "Come inside!" he said, "I'll show you all we've got now -- it was size You wanted? -- oh, dry colors! Well" -- he led To a dim alley lined with musty bins, And pulled one fiercely. Violent and bold A sudden tempest of mad, shrieking sins Scarlet screamed out above the battered gold Of tins and picture-frames. I held my breath.

He tugged another hard -- and sapphire skies Spread in vast quietude, serene as death, O'er waves like crackled turquoise -- and my eyes Burnt with the blinding brilliance of calm sea!

"We're selling that lot there out cheap!" said he.

A Minor Poet

I am a sh.e.l.l. From me you shall not hear The splendid tramplings of insistent drums, The orbed gold of the viol's voice that comes, Heavy with radiance, languorous and clear.

Yet, if you hold me close against the ear, A dim, far whisper rises clamorously, The thunderous beat and pa.s.sion of the sea, The slow surge of the tides that drown the mere.

Others with subtle hands may pluck the strings, Making even Love in music audible, And earth one glory. I am but a sh.e.l.l That moves, not of itself, and moving sings; Leaving a fragrance, faint as wine new-shed, A tremulous murmur from great days long dead.

The Lover in h.e.l.l

Eternally the choking steam goes up From the black pools of seething oil....

How merry Those little devils are! They've stolen the pitchfork From Bel, there, as he slept... Look! -- oh look, look!

They've got at Nero! Oh it isn't fair!

Lord, how he squeals! Stop it... it's, well -- indecent!

But funny!... See, Bel's waked. They'll catch it now!

... Eternally that stifling reek arises, Blotting the dome with smoky, terrible towers, Black, strangling trees, whispering obscene things Amongst their branches, clutching with maimed hands, Or oozing slowly, like blind tentacles Up to the gates; higher than that heaped brick Man piled to smite the sun. And all around Are devils. One can laugh... but that hunched shape The face one stone, like those a.s.syrian kings!

One sees in carvings, watching men flayed red Horribly laughable in leaps and writhes; That face -- utterly evil, clouded round With evil like a smoke -- it turns smiles sour!

... And Nero there, the flabby cheeks astrain And sweating agony... long agony...

Imperishable, unappeasable For ever... well... it droops the mouth. Till I Look up.

There's one blue patch no smoke dares touch.

Sky, clear, ineffable, alive with light, Always the same...

Before, I never knew Rest and green peace.