Part 8 (1/2)

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.