Dreams Old and Nascent
   
 
   
Nascent
   
        
My world is a painted fresco, where coloured shapes      
Of old, ineffectual lives linger blurred and warm;      
An endless tapestry the past has women drapes      
The halls of my life, compelling my soul to conform.
         
The surface of dreams is broken,           5   
The picture of the past is shaken and scattered.      
Fluent, active figures of men pass along the railway, and I am woken      
From the dreams that the distance flattered.
          
Along the railway, active figures of men.      
They have a secret that stirs in their limbs as they move              
Out of the distance, nearer, commanding my dreamy world.
         
Here in the subtle, rounded flesh      
Beats the active ecstasy.   
In the sudden lifting my eyes, it is clearer,      
The fascination of the quick, restless Creator moving through the mesh              
Of men, vibrating in ecstasy through the rounded flesh.
         
Oh my boys, bending over your books,      
In you is trembling and fusing      
The creation of a new-patterned dream, dream of a generation:      
And I watch to see the Creator, the power that patterns the dream.
                 
The old dreams are beautiful, beloved, soft-toned, and sure,      
But the dream-stuff is molten and moving mysteriously,      
Alluring my eyes; for I, am I not also dream-stuff,      
Am I not quickening, diffusing myself in the pattern, shaping and shapen?
          
Here in my class is the answer for the great yearning:           25   
Eyes where I can watch the swim of old dreams reflected on the molten metal of dreams,      
Watch the stir which is rhythmic and moves them all as a heart-beat moves the blood,      
Here in the swelling flesh the great activity working,      
Visible there in the change of eyes and the mobile features.
         
Oh the great mystery and fascination of the unseen Shaper,           30   
The power of the melting, fusing Force—heat, light, all in one,      
Everything great and mysterious in one, swelling and shaping the dream in the flesh,      
As it swells and shapes a bud into blossom.
          
Oh the terrible ecstasy of the consciousness that I am life!      
Oh the miracle of the whole, the widespread, labouring concentration           35   
Swelling mankind like one bud to bring forth the fruit of a dream,      
Oh the terror of lifting the innermost I out of the sweep of the impulse of life,      
And watching the great Thing labouring through the whole round flesh of the world;      
And striving to catch a glimpse of the shape of the coming dream,      
As it quickens within the labouring, white-hot metal,           40   
Catch the scent and the colour of the coming dream,      
Then to fall back exhausted into the unconscious, molten life!

A Winter’s Tale
   
        
Ysterday the fields were only grey with scattered snow,      
And now the longest grass-leaves hardly emerge;      
Yet her deep footsteps mark the snow, and go      
On towards the pines at the hills’ white verge.
          
I cannot see her, since the mist’s white scarf           5   
Obscures the dark wood and the dull orange sky;      
But she’s waiting, I know, impatient and cold, half      
Sobs struggling into her frosty sigh.
          
Why does she come so promptly, when she must know      
That she’s only the nearer to the inevitable farewell;           10   
The hill is steep, on the snow my steps are slow—      
Why does she come, when she knows what I have to tell?

Epilogue
   
    
Patience, little Heart.      
One day a heavy, June-hot woman      
Will enter and shut the door to stay.
          
And when your stifling heart would summon      
Cool, lonely night, her roused breasts will keep the night at bay,           5   
Sitting in your room like two tiger-lilies      
Flaming on after sunset,      
Destroying the cool, lonely night with the glow of their hot twilight;      
There in the morning, still, while the fierce strange scent comes yet      
Stronger, hot and red; till you thirst for the daffodillies           10   
With an anguished, husky thirst that you cannot assuage,      
When the daffodillies are dead, and a woman of the dog-days holds you in gage.      
Patience, little Heart.

A Baby Running Barefoot
   
   
When the bare feet of the baby beat across the grass      
The little white feet nod like white flowers in the wind,      
They poise and run like ripples lapping across the water;      
And the sight of their white play among the grass      
Is like a little robin’s song, winsome,           5   
Or as two white butterflies settle in the cup of one flower      
For a moment, then away with a flutter of wings.
      
    
I long for the baby to wander hither to me      
Like a wind-shadow wandering over the water,      
So that she can stand on my knee           10   
With her little bare feet in my hands,      
Cool like syringa buds,      
Firm and silken like pink young peony flowers.

Discipline
   
       
It is stormy, and raindrops cling like silver bees to the pane,      
The thin sycamores in the playground are swinging with flattened leaves;      
The heads of the boys move dimly through a yellow gloom that stains      
The class; over them all the dark net of my discipline weaves.
         
It is no good, dear, gentleness and forbearance, I endured too long:           5   
I have pushed my hands in the dark soil, under the flower of my soul      
And the gentle leaves, and have felt where the roots are strong      
Fixed in the darkness, grappling for the deep soil’s little control.
          
And there is the dark, my darling, where the roots are entangled and fight      
Each one for its hold on the oblivious darkness, I know that there           10   
In the night where we first have being, before we rise on the light,      
We are not brothers, my darling, we fight and we do not spare.
         
And in the original dark the roots cannot keep, cannot know      
Any communion whatever, but they bind themselves on to the dark,      
And drawing the darkness together, crush from it a twilight, a slow           15   
Burning that breaks at last into leaves and a flower’s bright spark.
         
I came to the boys with love, my dear, but they turned on me;      
I came with gentleness, with my heart ’twixt my hands like a bowl,      
Like a loving-cup, like a grail, but they spilt it triumphantly      
And tried to break the vessel, and to violate my soul.
                 
But what have I to do with the boys, deep down in my soul, my love?      
I throw from out of the darkness my self like a flower into sight,      
Like a flower from out of the night-time, I lift my face, and those      
Who will may warm their hands at me, comfort this night.
          
But whosoever would pluck apart my flowering shall burn their hands,           25   
So flowers are tender folk, and roots can only hide,      
Yet my flowerings of love are a fire, and the scarlet brands      
Of my love are roses to look at, but flames to chide.
         
But comfort me, my love, now the fires are low,      
Now I am broken to earth like a winter destroyed, and all           30   
Myself but a knowledge of roots, of roots in the dark that throw      
A net on the undersoil, which lies passive beneath their thrall.
          
But comfort me, for henceforth my love is yours alone,      
To you alone will I offer the bowl, to you will I give      
My essence only, but love me, and I will atone           35   
To you for my general loving, atone as long as I live.

Scent of Irises
   
       
A faint, sickening scent of irises      
Persists all morning. Here in a jar on the table      
A fine proud spike of purple irises      
Rising above the class-room litter, makes me unable      
To see the class’s lifted and bended faces           5   
Save in a broken pattern, amid purple and gold and sable.
          
I can smell the gorgeous bog-end, in its breathless      
Dazzle of may-blobs, when the marigold glare overcast you      
With fire on your cheeks and your brow and your chin as you dipped      
Your face in the marigold bunch, to touch and contrast you,           10   
Your own dark mouth with the bridal faint lady-smocks,      
Dissolved on the golden sorcery you should not outlast.
         
You amid the bog-end’s yellow incantation,      
You sitting in the cowslips of the meadow above,      
Me, your shadow on the bog-flame, flowery may-blobs,           15   
Me full length in the cowslips, muttering you love      
You, your soul like a lady-smock, lost, evanescent,      
You with your face all rich, like the sheen of a dove.
         
You are always asking, do I remember, remember      
The butter-cup bog-end where the flowers rose up           20   
And kindled you over deep with a cast of gold?      
You ask again, do the healing days close up      
The open darkness which then drew us in,      
The dark which then drank up our brimming cup.
          
You upon the dry, dead beech-leaves, in the fire of night           25   
Burnt like a sacrifice; you invisible;      
Only the fire of darkness, and the scent of you!      
—And yes, thank God, it still is possible      
The healing days shall close the darkness up      
Wherein we fainted like a smoke or dew.
                  
Like vapour, dew, or poison. Now, thank God,      
The fire of night is gone, and your face is ash      
Indistinguishable on the grey, chill day;      
The night had burst us out, at last the good      
Dark fire burns on untroubled, without clash           35   
Of you upon the dead leaves saying me Yea.

The Prophet
   
    
Ah, my darling, when over the purple horizon shall loom      
The shrouded mother of a new idea, men hide their faces,      
Cry out and fend her off, as she seeks her procreant groom,      
Wounding themselves against her, denying her fecund embraces.
      
 

Last Words to Miriam
   
       
Yours is the shame and sorrow      
  But the disgrace is mine;      
Your love was dark and thorough,      
Mine was the love of the sun for a flower      
  He creates with his shine.
             
I was diligent to explore you,      
  Blossom you stalk by stalk,      
Till my fire of creation bore you      
Shrivelling down in the final dour      
  Anguish—then I suffered a balk.
                  
I knew your pain, and it broke      
  My fine, craftsman’s nerve;      
Your body quailed at my stroke,      
And my courage failed to give you the last      
  Fine torture you did deserve.
                  
You are shapely, you are adorned,      
  But opaque and dull in the flesh,      
Who, had I but pierced with the thorned      
Fire-threshing anguish, were fused and cast      
  In a lovely illumined mesh.
               
Like a painted window: the best      
  Suffering burnt through your flesh,      
Undrossed it and left it blest      
With a quivering sweet wisdom of grace: but now      
  Who shall take you afresh?
                  
Now who will burn you free      
  From your body’s terrors and dross,      
Since the fire has failed in me?      
What man will stoop in your flesh to plough      
  The shrieking cross?
                 
A mute, nearly beautiful thing      
 Is your face, that fills me with shame      
As I see it hardening,      
Warping the perfect image of God,      
  And darkening my eternal fame.

Mystery
   
        
Now I am all      
One bowl of kisses,      
Such as the tall      
Slim votaresses      
Of Egypt filled           5   
For a God’s excesses.
         
I lift to you      
My bowl of kisses,      
And through the temple’s      
Blue recesses           10   
Cry out to you      
In wild caresses.
          
And to my lips’      
Bright crimson rim      
The passion slips,           15   
And down my slim      
White body drips      
The shining hymn.
         
And still before      
The altar I           20   
Exult the bowl      
Brimful, and cry      
To you to stoop      
And drink, Most High.
          
Oh drink me up           25   
That I may be      
Within your cup      
Like a mystery,      
Like wine that is still      
In ecstasy.           30
      
Glimmering still      
In ecstasy,      
Commingled wines      
Of you and me      
In one fulfil           35   
The mystery.

Patience
   
        
A wind comes from the north      
Blowing little flocks of birds      
Like spray across the town,      
And a train, roaring forth,      
Rushes stampeding down           5   
With cries and flying curds      
Of steam, out of the darkening north.
          
Whither I turn and set      
Like a needle steadfastly,      
Waiting ever to get           10   
The news that she is free;      
But ever fixed, as yet,      
To the lode of her agony.