Beauty; beheld like someone half-forgotten, Remembered, with slow pang, as one neglected . . .

Well, I am frustrate; life has beaten me, The thing I strongly seized has turned to darkness, And darkness rides my heart. . . . These skeleton elm-trees-- Leaning against that grey-gold snow filled sky-- Beauty! they say, and at the edge of darkness Extend vain arms in a frozen gesture of protest . . .

A clock ticks softly; a gas-jet steadily whirs: The pencil meets its shadow upon clear paper, Voices are raised, a door is slammed. The lovers, Murmuring in an adjacent room, grow silent, The eaves make liquid music. . . . Hours have pa.s.sed, And nothing changes, and everything is changed.

Exultation is dead, Beauty is harlot,-- And walks the streets. The thing I strongly seized Has turned to darkness, and darkness rides my heart.

If you could solve this darkness you would have me.

This causeless melancholy that comes with rain, Or on such days as this when large wet snowflakes Drop heavily, with rain . . . whence rises this?

Well, so-and-so, this morning when I saw him, Seemed much preoccupied, and would not smile; And you, I saw too much; and you, too little; And the word I chose for you, the golden word, The word that should have struck so deep in purpose, And set so many doors of wish wide open, You let it fall, and would not stoop for it, And smiled at me, and would not let me guess Whether you saw it fall. . . These things, together, With other things, still slighter, wove to music, And this in time drew up dark memories; And there I stand. This music breaks and bleeds me, Turning all frustrate dreams to chords and discords, Faces and griefs, and words, and sunlit evenings, And chains self-forged that will not break nor lengthen, And cries that none can answer, few will hear.

Have these things meaning? Or would you see more clearly If I should say 'My second wife grows tedious, Or, like gay tulip, keeps no perfumed secret'?

Or 'one day dies eventless as another, Leaving the seeker still unsatisfied, And more convinced life yields no satisfaction'?

Or 'seek too hard, the sight at length grows callous, And beauty shines in vain'?--

These things you ask for, These you shall have. . . So, talking with my first wife, At the dark end of evening, when she leaned And smiled at me, with blue eyes weaving webs Of finest fire, revolving me in scarlet,-- Calling to mind remote and small successions Of countless other evenings ending so,-- I smiled, and met her kiss, and wished her dead; Dead of a sudden sickness, or by my hands Savagely killed; I saw her in her coffin, I saw her coffin borne downstairs with trouble, I saw myself alone there, palely watching, Wearing a masque of grief so deeply acted That grief itself possessed me. Time would pa.s.s, And I should meet this girl,--my second wife-- And drop the masque of grief for one of pa.s.sion.

Forward we move to meet, half hesitating, We drown in each others' eyes, we laugh, we talk, Looking now here, now there, faintly pretending We do not hear the powerful pulsing prelude Roaring beneath our words . . . The time approaches.

We lean unbalanced. The mute last glance between us, Profoundly searching, opening, asking, yielding, Is steadily met: our two lives draw together . . .

. . . .'What are you thinking of?'. . . . My first wife's voice Scattered these ghosts. 'Oh nothing--nothing much-- Just wondering where we'd be two years from now, And what we might be doing . . . ' And then remorse Turned sharply in my mind to sudden pity, And pity to echoed love. And one more evening Drew to the usual end of sleep and silence.

And, as it is with this, so too with all things.

The pages of our lives are blurred palimpsest: New lines are wreathed on old lines half-erased, And those on older still; and so forever.

The old shines through the new, and colors it.

What's new? What's old? All things have double meanings,-- All things return. I write a line with pa.s.sion (Or touch a woman's hand, or plumb a doctrine) Only to find the same thing, done before,-- Only to know the same thing comes to-morrow. . . .

This curious riddled dream I dreamed last night,-- Six years ago I dreamed it just as now; The same man stooped to me; we rose from darkness, And broke the accustomed order of our days, And struck for the morning world, and warmth, and freedom. . . .

What does it mean? Why is this hint repeated?

What darkness does it spring from, seek to end?

You see me, then, pa.s.s up and down these stairways, Now through a beam of light, and now through shadow,-- Pursuing silent ends. No rest there is,-- No more for me than you. I move here always, From quiet room to room, from wall to wall, Searching and plotting, weaving a web of days.

This is my house, and now, perhaps, you know me. . .

Yet I confess, for all my best intentions, Once more I have deceived you. . . . I withhold The one thing precious, the one dark thing that guides me; And I have spread two snares for you, of lies.

IV. COUNTERPOINT: TWO ROOMS

He, in the room above, grown old and tired, She, in the room below--his floor her ceiling-- Pursue their separate dreams. He turns his light, And throws himself on the bed, face down, in laughter. . . .

She, by the window, smiles at a starlight night,

His watch--the same he has heard these cycles of ages-- Wearily chimes at seconds beneath his pillow.

The clock, upon her mantelpiece, strikes nine.

The night wears on. She hears dull steps above her.

The world whirs on. . . . New stars come up to shine.

His youth--far off--he sees it brightly walking In a golden cloud. . . . Wings flashing about it. . . . Darkness Walls it around with dripping enormous walls.

Old age--far off--her death--what do they matter?

Down the smooth purple night a streaked star falls.

She hears slow steps in the street--they chime like music; They climb to her heart, they break and flower in beauty, Along her veins they glisten and ring and burn. . . .

He hears his own slow steps tread down to silence.

Far off they pa.s.s. He knows they will never return.

Far off--on a smooth dark road--he hears them faintly.

The road, like a sombre river, quietly flowing, Moves among murmurous walls. A deeper breath Swells them to sound: he hears his steps more clearly.

And death seems nearer to him: or he to death.

What's death?--She smiles. The cool stone hurts her elbows.

The last of the rain-drops gather and fall from elm-boughs, She sees them glisten and break. The arc-lamp sings, The new leaves dip in the warm wet air and fragrance.

A sparrow whirs to the eaves, and shakes his wings.

What's death--what's death? The spring returns like music, The trees are like dark lovers who dream in starlight, The soft grey clouds go over the stars like dreams.

The cool stone wounds her arms to pain, to pleasure.

Under the lamp a circle of wet street gleams. . . .

And death seems far away, a thing of roses, A golden portal, where golden music closes, Death seems far away: And spring returns, the countless singing of lovers, And spring returns to stay. . . .

He, in the room above, grown old and tired, Flings himself on the bed, face down, in laughter, And clenches his hands, and remembers, and desires to die.

And she, by the window, smiles at a night of starlight.

. . . The soft grey clouds go slowly across the sky.

V. THE BITTER LOVE-SONG

No, I shall not say why it is that I love you-- Why do you ask me, save for vanity?

Surely you would not have me, like a mirror, Say 'yes,--your hair curls darkly back from the temples, Your mouth has a humorous, tremulous, half-shy sweetness, Your eyes are April grey. . . . with jonquils in them?'

No, if I tell at all, I shall tell in silence . . .

I'll say--my childhood broke through chords of music --Or were they chords of sun?--wherein fell shadows, Or silences; I rose through seas of sunlight; Or sometimes found a darkness stooped above me With wings of death, and a face of cold clear beauty. .

I lay in the warm sweet gra.s.s on a blue May morning, My chin in a dandelion, my hands in clover, And drowsed there like a bee. . . . blue days behind me Stretched like a chain of deep blue pools of magic, Enchanted, silent, timeless. . . . days before me Murmured of blue-sea mornings, noons of gold, Green evenings streaked with lilac, bee-starred nights.

Confused soft clouds of music fled above me.

Sharp shafts of music dazzled my eyes and pierced me.

I ran and turned and spun and danced in the sunlight, Shrank, sometimes, from the freezing silence of beauty, Or crept once more to the warm white cave of sleep.

No, I shall not say 'this is why I praise you-- Because you say such wise things, or such foolish. . .'

You would not have me say what you know better?

Let me instead be silent, only saying--: My childhood lives in me--or half-lives, rather-- And, if I close my eyes cool chords of music Flow up to me . . . long chords of wind and sunlight. . . .

Shadows of intricate vines on sunlit walls, Deep bells beating, with aeons of blue between them, Gra.s.s blades leagues apart with worlds between them, Walls rushing up to heaven with stars upon them. . .

I lay in my bed and through the tall night window Saw the green lightning plunging among the clouds, And heard the harsh rain storm at the panes and roof. . . .

How should I know--how should I now remember-- What half-dreamed great wings curved and sang above me?

What wings like swords? What eyes with the dread night in them?

This I shall say.--I lay by the hot white sand-dunes. .

Small yellow flowers, sapless and squat and spiny, Stared at the sky. And silently there above us Day after day, beyond our dreams and knowledge, Presences swept, and over us streamed their shadows, Swift and blue, or dark. . . . What did they mean?

What sinister threat of power? What hint of beauty?

Prelude to what gigantic music, or subtle?

Only I know these things leaned over me, Brooded upon me, paused, went flowing softly, Glided and pa.s.sed. I loved, I desired, I hated, I struggled, I yielded and loved, was warmed to blossom . . .

You, when your eyes have evening sunlight in them, Set these dunes before me, these salt bright flowers, These presences. . . . I drowse, they stream above me, I struggle, I yield and love, I am warmed to dream.

You are the window (if I could tell I'd tell you) Through which I see a clear far world of sunlight.

You are the silence (if you could hear you'd hear me) In which I remember a thin still whisper of singing.

It is not you I laugh for, you I touch!

My hands, that touch you, suddenly touch white cobwebs, Coldly silvered, heavily silvered with dewdrops; And clover, heavy with rain; and cold green gra.s.s. . .