 | Lays of France |  |
Ah, haste
To live thy false life through, that I
May have that wrecked thing I did buy
—A body for a soul!—for mine
I think you shall be, since I hold
A vow for every hair of gold,
And destinies and all divine
Unalterable things of old
Witnessed your pale frail body bound
To me immutably.—Ah, white
And worthless blossom, for delight
Of the lips only: Ah, the round
Quite faultless fashioning of slim
And sinuous side and shapely limb:
Ah, the delirious abyss
Of the mouth fainting in a kiss:—
Ah, all this, yea, though merely this,—
Can make a goodly hell for him
Who loses heaven. And I grow sick
Of waiting since I am no more
Than one to kiss your bosom sore
For ever. Wherefore now the thick
Polluted darkness? Wherefore gloom
And lonely wakings in the tomb?
Sin all, and, as you are, come quick
And share my sin down here. How long
Have I endured to dream among
The worms in faithful wretchedness—
Sure you would come and lie along
Beside me and be sweet no less
Than I believed you? You would bless
Some fond way for it all, and set
Your mouth upon my mouth and let
The dreamed-of heaven begin: and, quite
So noble was I with my faith,—
But for these sad words, I felt bite
The ground through to me—O I might
Have ceased not trusting the sweet wraith
Of word and kiss and memory,
Of what I left you, endlessly!
Here, in my place among the things
That change not, I myself, in all,
A changeless spirit past recall,
With life's supreme rememberings
Unshaken in me,—here I feel
And shudder at your shameful word.
O woman, think you no fates heard,
When, passionately, beyond repeal,
You bade them know you mine and seal
Your life and death so? See the blue—
The sight you have up there with you
Most near to heaven,—and, if you can,
Believe there is a God to let
You change the word you would forget,
And quite revoke the doom a man
Hath lived and died in! Change; and yet
You cannot change, but earth and sky
And death will keep you mine: and I—
Do not I live for ever?
To live thy false life through, that I
May have that wrecked thing I did buy
—A body for a soul!—for mine
I think you shall be, since I hold
A vow for every hair of gold,
And destinies and all divine
Unalterable things of old
Witnessed your pale frail body bound
To me immutably.—Ah, white
And worthless blossom, for delight
Of the lips only: Ah, the round
Quite faultless fashioning of slim
And sinuous side and shapely limb:
Ah, the delirious abyss
Of the mouth fainting in a kiss:—
Ah, all this, yea, though merely this,—
Can make a goodly hell for him
Who loses heaven. And I grow sick
Of waiting since I am no more
124
For ever. Wherefore now the thick
Polluted darkness? Wherefore gloom
And lonely wakings in the tomb?
Sin all, and, as you are, come quick
And share my sin down here. How long
Have I endured to dream among
The worms in faithful wretchedness—
Sure you would come and lie along
Beside me and be sweet no less
Than I believed you? You would bless
Some fond way for it all, and set
Your mouth upon my mouth and let
The dreamed-of heaven begin: and, quite
So noble was I with my faith,—
But for these sad words, I felt bite
The ground through to me—O I might
Have ceased not trusting the sweet wraith
Of word and kiss and memory,
Of what I left you, endlessly!
Here, in my place among the things
That change not, I myself, in all,
A changeless spirit past recall,
125
Unshaken in me,—here I feel
And shudder at your shameful word.
O woman, think you no fates heard,
When, passionately, beyond repeal,
You bade them know you mine and seal
Your life and death so? See the blue—
The sight you have up there with you
Most near to heaven,—and, if you can,
Believe there is a God to let
You change the word you would forget,
And quite revoke the doom a man
Hath lived and died in! Change; and yet
You cannot change, but earth and sky
And death will keep you mine: and I—
Do not I live for ever?
| Lays of France | |