Songs and Satires Part 9

You, standing between the window and the bed Are edged with rainbow colors. And I lie Drowsy with quizzical half-open eye Musing upon the contour of your head, Watching you comb your hair, Clothed in a corset waist and skirt of silk, Tied with white braid above your slender hips Which reaches to your knees and makes your bare And delicate legs by contrast white as milk.

And as you toss your head to comb its tresses They flash upon me like long strips of sand Between a moonlit sea, pale as your hand, And a red sun that on a high dune stresses Its sanguine heat.

And then at times your lips, Protruding half unconscious half in scorn Engage my eyes while looking through the morn At the clear oval of your brow brought full Over the sovereign largeness of your eyes; Or at your b.r.e.a.s.t.s that shake not as you pull The comb through stubborn tangles, only rise Scarcely perceptible with breath or signs, Firm unmaternal like a young Bacchante's, Or at your nose profoundly dipped like Dante's Over your chin that softly melts away.

Now you seem fully under my heart's sway.

I have slipped through the magic of your mesh Freed once again and strengthened by your flesh, You seem a weak thing for a strong man's play.

Yet I know now that we shall scarce have parted When I shall think of you half heavy hearted.

I know our partings. You will faintly smile And look at me with eyes that have no guile, Or have too much, and pa.s.s into the sphere Where you keep independent life meanwhile.

How do you live without me, is the fear?

You do not lean upon me, ask my love, or wonder Of other loves I may have hidden under These casual renewals of our love.

And if I loved you I should lie in flame, Ari, go about re-murmuring your name, And these are things a man should be above.

And as I lie here on the imminent brink Of soul's surrender into your soul's power, And in the white light of the morning hour I see what life would be if we should link Our lives together in a marriage pact: For we would walk along a boundless tract Of perfect h.e.l.l; but your disloyalty Would be of spirit, for I have not won Mastered and bound your spirit unto me.

And if you had a lover in the way I have you it would not by half betray My love as does your vague and chainless thought, Which wanders, soars or vanishes, returns, Changes, astonishes, or chills or burns, Is unresisting, plastic, freely wrought Under my hands yet to no unison Of my life and of yours. Upon this brink I watch you now and think Of all that has been preached or sung or spoken Of woman's tragedy in woman's fall; And all the pictures of a woman broken By man's superior strength.

And there you stand Your heart and life as firmly in command Of your resolve as mine is, knowing all Of man, the master, and his power to harm, His rulers.h.i.+p of spheres material, Bread, customs, rules of fair repute-- What are they all against your slender arm?

Which long since plucked the fruit Of good and evil, and of life at last And now of Life. For dancing you have cast Veil after veil of ideals or pretense With which men clothe the being feminine To satisfy their lords.h.i.+p or their sense Of owners.h.i.+p and hide the things of sin-- You have thrown them aside veil after veil; And there you stand unarmored, weirdly frail, Yet strong as nature, making comical The poems and the tales of woman's fall....

You nod your head, you smile, I feel the air Made by the closing door. I lie and stare At the closed door. One, two, your tufted steps Die on the velvet of the outer hall.

You have escaped. And I would not pursue.

Though we are but caged creatures, I and you-- A male and female tiger in a zoo.

For I shall wait you. Life himself will track Your wanderings and bring you back, And shut you up again with me and cage Our love and hatred and our silent rage.

SAVING A WOMAN: ONE PHASE

To a l.u.s.tful thirst she came at first And gave him her maiden's pride; And the first man scattered the flower of her love, Then turned to his chosen bride.

She waned with grief as a fading star, And waxed as a s.h.i.+ning flame; And the second man had her woman's love, But the second was playing the game.

With pa.s.sion she stirred the man who was third; Woe's me! what delicate skill She plied to the heart that knew her art And fled from her wanton will.

Now calm and demure, oh fair, oh pure, Oh subtle, patient and wise, She trod the weary round of life, With a sorrow deep in her eyes.

Now a hero who knew how false, how true Was the speech that fell from her lips, With a Norseman's strength took sail with her, And landed and burnt his s.h.i.+ps.

He gave her pity, he gave her mirth, And the hurt in her heart he nursed; But under the silence of her brows Was a dream of the man who was first.

And all the deceit and l.u.s.t of men Had sharpened her own deceit; And down to the gates of h.e.l.l she led Her friend with her flying feet.

For a bitten bud will never bloom, And a woman lost is lost!

And the first and the third may go unscathed, But some man pays the cost.

And the books of life are full of the rune, And this is the truth of the song: No man can save a woman's soul, Nor right a woman's wrong.

LOVE IS A MADNESS

Love is a madness, love is a fevered dream, A white soul lost in a field of scarlet flowers-- Love is a search for the lost, the ever vanis.h.i.+ng gleam Of wings, desires and sorrows and haunted hours.

Will the look return to your eyes, the warmth to your hand?

Love is a doubt, an ache, love is a writhing fear.

Love is a potion drunk when the s.h.i.+p puts out from land, Rudderless, sails at full, and with none to steer.

The end is a shattered lamp, a drunken seraph asleep, The upturned face of the drowned on a barren beach.

The glare of noon is o'er us, we are ashamed to weep-- The beginning and end of love are devoid of speech.

ON A BUST

Your speeches seemed to answer for the nonce-- They do not justify your head in bronze!

Your essays! talent's failures were to you Your philosophic gamut, but things true, Or beautiful, oh never! What's the pons For you to cross to fame?--Your head in bronze?

What has the artist caught? The sensual chin That melts away in weakness from the skin, Sagging from your indifference of mind; The sullen mouth that sneers at human kind For lack of genius to create or rule; The superficial scorn that says "you fool!"

The deep-set eyes that have the mud-cat look Which might belong to Tolstoi or a crook.

The nose half-thickly fleshed and half in point, And lightly turned awry as out of joint; The eyebrows pointing upward satyr-wise, Scarce like Mephisto, for you scarcely rise To cosmic irony in what you dream-- More like a tomcat sniffing yellow cream.

The brow! 'Tis worth the bronze it's molded in Save for the flat-top head and narrow thin Backhead which shows your spirit has not soared.

You are a Packard engine in a Ford, Which wrecks itself and turtles with its load, Too light and powerful to keep the road.

The master strength for twisting words is caught In the swift turning wheels of iron thought.

With butcher knives your hands can vivisect Our b.u.t.terflies, but you can not erect Temples of beauty, wisdom. You can crawl Hungry and subtle over Eden's wall, And shame half grown up truth, or make a lie Full grown as good. You cannot glorify Our dreams, or aspirations, or deep thirst.

To you the world's a fig tree which is curst.

You have preached every faith but to betray; The artist shows us you have had your day.

A giant as we hoped, in truth a dwarf; A barrel of slop that s.h.i.+nes on Lethe's wharf, Which seemed at first a vessel with sweet wine For thirsty lips. So down the swift decline You went through sloven spirit, craven heart And cynic indolence. And here the art Of molding clay has caught you for the nonce And made your shame our shame--your head in bronze!

Some day this bust will lie amid old metals Old copper boilers, wires, faucets, kettles.

Some day it will be melted up and molded In door k.n.o.bs, inkwells, paper knives, or folded In leaves and wreaths around the capitals Of marble columns, or for a.r.s.enals Fas.h.i.+oned in something, or in course of time Successively made each of these, from grime Rescued successively, or made a bell For fire or wors.h.i.+p, who on earth can tell?

One thing is sure, you will not long be dust When this bronze will be broken as a bust And given to the junkman to re-sell.

You know this and the thought of it is h.e.l.l!

ARABEL

Twists of smoke rise from the limpness of jewelled fingers, The softness of Persian rugs hushes the room.

Under a dragon lamp with a shade the color of coral Sit the readers of poems one by one.

And all the room is in shadow except for the blur Of mahogany surface, and tapers against the wall.

And a youth reads a poem of love: forever and ever Is his soul the soul of the loved one; a woman sings Of the nine months which go to the birth of a soul.

And after a time under the lamp a man Begins to read a letter having no poem to read.