Part 9 (2/2)

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.

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