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(1922)
IN the days when the dawn thrust its lances over hills that were fresher than dew, | |
| When there burned upon upstartled glances new glories of lands that were new, | |
| Men stood forth and plucked what they fancied as the bee drinks full of the flower; | |
| Thorns pricked? or the garner was rancid? there were manifold fruits to devour. | |
| No question was cloud on their doing, no self-searching led them amiss, | 5 |
| They saw, they desired, and pursuing won to the maid with a kiss, | |
| With a kiss that he took and she granted in fulness of open delight, | |
| For they were not abashed, neither flaunted their joys on indifferent sight, | |
| But loved where they found, without query of motive and intent and scheme | |
| As the brown bear gobbles the berry, as wild geese scream, | 10 |
| As Charon waits at the ferry of death, and as poets dream. | |
| The forests and glades then were crowded with creatures of turbulent range, | |
| Whose passionate sun never clouded, whose ardor was endless as change. | |
| The lake closed over the naïad, a silent sheltering cloak, | |
| The faun leapt forth at the dryad, and stumbled over the oak; | 15 |
| Each lad felt a power greater than freshet mad with the spring: | |
| “Weak is the boast of the satyr!—but a nymph is a tender thing; | |
| She may fly me the moment, but later she shall nest in my heart, and sing; | |
| Sing low of her tender caresses, sing wild of her passion-throes; | |
| I shall pilfer a curl of her tresses, I shall rest,—ah, rest!—when she goes, | 20 |
| Till memory splendidly dresses her, till memories close….” | |
| And strange gods have leapt from their passion: Priapus, o’erweening, outthrust, | |
| Cotytto, whose glance lays the lash on, whose warm waxen flesh is the crust | |
| Of a vented volcano whose fires suck the breath of the lover that comes, | |
| And his limbs are the chords of her lyres, his body the beat of her drums; | 25 |
| Their passion has sprung through Astarte, whose eyes ever close in love’s death, | |
| And all that is lusty and hearty breathes deep of her maddening breath. | |
| Through their gods we have glimpse of a fashion whose fragrance we know not of; | |
| The pagans have proffered us passion, but thou art the god of love. | |
| Thou art love: in all forms to all peoples do thy multiple mysteries throb, | 30 |
| From thy strident Priapean steeples to thy soul that is cupped in a sob; | |
| With children thy fingers are tender as beaver to beaver-young; | |
| Thou art the undaunted defender of the thief and the harlot, outflung | |
| From the doors of the holy, and mender of hearts that disaster has wrung. | |
| Thou art love of the feeble, the pallid; thou art tolerance of the strong, | 35 |
| Thou art comfort for him who has dallied on the threshold of wrong, | |
| And the starveling has filled him and rallied with breath of thy song. | |
| Thou art love of the virgin mother, who walks in a robe of white | |
| Like the snowdrifts that silently smother the moist earth’s might. | |
| And men cry that thy garments are ashes, the hem of thy robe is a dust; | 40 |
| And pity wells under thy lashes more potent than anger’s gust: | |
| But I see there gleam memoried flashes of flaming lust. | |
| To thy spirit are women forbidden things, carnal, cunning, and cruel, | |
| Their flesh is by demons ridden, their souls are the devil’s fuel, | |
| From the sight of man must they be hidden; man deems hell-fire a jewel. | 45 |
| (Is Satan a subtler schemer than thy simplicity grasps? | |
| Thou that art man’s redeemer when Satan clasps.) | |
| Warn us of woman; do we spurn her? It is danger that sets man afire; | |
| A secret, man hungers to learn her; a sin, and she feeds his desire. | |
| A veil, and it cries to be lifted, it flutters to give man a glimpse | 50 |
| Of a goddess supernally gifted;—and a thousand manna-tongued imps | |
| Quiver “Woman’s a shallow delusion, her mystery manifest snare; | |
| Her eyes are the gates of confusion, that close when you’re captured there.” | |
| Are the imps and thy word in collusion? Man is blind when ye bid him beware. | |
| In what pagan whose passion imperious the envious lover paints | 55 |
| Rose ever a ferment delirious as whirled in the dreams of the saints? | |
| No secret abode could avail them, no penance still their alarms; | |
| Through the lonely ways she would trail them, entwine them with sinuous charms, | |
| Till their saintly endurance would fail them, or they fled through death to thine arms. | |
| When woman was held for the pleasure and comfort and solace of man | 60 |
| Joy had its ultimate measure, in a world of measure and plan—— | |
| Now she is a trial and a treasure we may not span. | |
| And she too gives thanks for thy coming; thou hast taught her her wondrous might; | |
| Out of thy chill and thy numbing she has burned to a ruddier flight, | |
| And made of thy corseted mumming her arms for the fight. | 65 |
| Thou has made her man’s dream and damnation, and her piety pays for thy gifts; | |
| She is demure, but elation thrills quietly under and lifts | |
| In her soul to a mystical paean, in her form to a lambent grace | |
| (Fused with the Cytherean ardor, is a withheld embrace) | |
| That first in the empyrean accords thee thy holy place. | 70 |
| Oh God, linger on with the nations while the suns of my days endure; | |
| When man stays not to pour thee libations, what things will be sure? | |
| When woman, unmasked and ungirdled, understood, stands cleansed of her sin, | |
| The cream of her love will have curdled, the world of our love ceased to spin; | |
| Yield not to the clamor of science that seeing all, yet never knows; | 75 |
| Are thy pallor and meekness defiance to chill thy blustering foes? | |
| The pagan was youth, and was bolder to flash the sword from the sheath, | |
| Man and maiden shoulder to shoulder entwined round their limbs one wreath; | |
| Science is older and colder, and queries “What lieth beneath?” | |
| Thou layest thy gentle cover alike over query and quest, | 80 |
| As the arm of the tender lover droops on the tenderer breast;—— | |
| Whatever of gods may be mortal, hold thou thy throne above, | |
And smile to man over thy portal; thou alone art God, being love.
THE END | |
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