University of Virginia Library

NAKED NATURE.

I had a vision of an angel face;
It came to me one magic April morning,
When every flower through every sunwashed place
Was breaking out in beauty and new grace
And put on fresh adorning,
With shy scorning;
As if, with sudden flame and secret strife
And throbbing heart of thirst,
At last they burst
Into the glory of a greater life.
And this bright Angel face
Stept out of Space,
Which as some blue and palpitating blossom
Opened itself and showed the swelling bosom
And that white wonder of the naked form,
As soft as sleep and most divinely warm,
From the small golden head down to the feet
That trod in passion proud
Upon a cloud—
A form delicious pure and virgin sweet.
Naked, but clothed in light of coloured vesture,
And with unfathomed eyes
Like azure skies,
She stood before me with compelling gesture,
Bathed in a glow that never fell on man,
Or fairest woman
Of most perfect plan
Who gathers to her all the glories human;
Clothed in her own bright beauty
Like a dress,
Which seemed her duty—
That great loveliness;
All flushed with passion
That was utter purity,
She read the fashion
Of the dim futurity,
With eyes that travelled
On and on through haunted
Space and unravelled
Riddles dark, undaunted;
Ablush with love
That played in lambent fire,
With brow above
And feet of earth's desire,
She stayed my wandering with her waving hand
Whose waving was command,
And by the glamour of her conquering look,
And lips like rosy rhymes
Telling the stories of all climes and times,
Their changes and their chimes,
And poetries of every blessed book.
But, lo, the beauty of each separate flower,
Each individual grace
Poured on her face
The writing and the rapture of its power;
And she partook of each
Within the compass of her bright embrace,
Whate'er might gladden her exceeding dower
And living lessons teach.
But then O was it sound of laughing waters,
Or waft of summer winds
From fragrant Inds
Where star beams walk with moonlight's magic daughters?
A fount of music broke
From overflowing silence and the shrine
That seemed a holy shrine;
Spirit to spirit spoke,
And I awoke
To the full stature of a strength divine.
Round me her radiant arms
In dew and fire were folded,
And I was moulded
By the deep impress of her Angel charms
To something fairer still
Than any earthly shape by sculptor skill,
And the celestial rose that was her mouth,
Laden with all the perfume of the south
And other ages gone
When larger sunlight shone,
Shed into me a tempest of vitality
And riches of reality,
And while it breathed
Upon me I was caught and carried up,
As rapt with some intoxicating cup,
And mixed with her and with her life enwreathed. I saw
The meaning and the might of law,
The miracle and mystery
In all their history
Of all high things that harass souls of men,
Laid bare before me in the light of love
With beauty so terrifical
And bliss magnifical,
That in a flash of wonder every ken
Stood out like steps of fire to God above.
And when she laid
Voluptuous warm hands
O'erfull of passion and of utter purity
Upon my burdened brow—
And when she said
In words that with their brightness were obscurity
Unspeakable great thoughts, that ranged all lands
And seas divided by the venturous prow,
And reached through all futurity—
I was afraid.
But when she set her quickening lipson mine
In the full rapture of their rhythmic flame,
That seemed to twine
And in the shadow shine
About the hidden bases of my frame,
And mould it into something new, the same
As hers and half divine,
New courage came.
And with the glow of that creative kiss
Unclosing to me all the wells of bliss,
A voice that sounded every height
Of light,
And every deep
Where nought is made amiss
That brings the vision of the heaven called sleep,
Spoke to me of the height and the abyss.
“For ever now thy life is sealed
And healed
Of sorrow with no morrow but the day
That tricks in suffering even the noontide ray,
And sickness with the saddening blot
Or spot
Of trouble which is double with the shame
Not less a burden if it bears no name,
A living part of human things
If wings
And flying with vain trying to the morn
So big with blossom though it gives but thorn,
Which is earth's dark exiguous lot—
A spot
Which nowise may by mortals be forgot,
And to their brightest grandeur clings
And stings.
Henceforth thine cannot be a sordid choice,
Since thou hast seen my face and heard my voice;
But with my being thou art bathed
And swathed,
And cleansed from all the coarse and common dust
With all the keen corroding rust
Of lust,
Uplifted to the same sublimer goal
And gathered in a kindred whole
And soul,
Which blends thee with me in a kindred trust
Beyond each flitting shape and gust,
And must.
For thou hast fully seen
In all her stature
Unveiled the awful Queen
And naked Nature,
And known the secret sight
Not known to learning
But granted to the might
Of maiden yearning,
And felt my fervent lips'
Sweet palpitation
In ecstasy's eclipse
And education,
To thine in living breath
Divinely married
In rapture that were death,
If long they tarried.
And thou hast drunken deep
The mystic torrent,
And wakest not to weep
In strife abhorrent,
Washed in the quickening waves
That purge the mortal,
To others only graves,
To thee life's portal.
And now
Behold the blessed truth that turns
The lock of every riddle, on the brow
Of wrinkled age
Or writ on funeral urns
Or scarlet lips just opening the first page
Of purest passion
In its fiery fashion,
Or dimpled baby hands that clasp another's
Who one mad moment has the hungry fill
That is a mother's
Then unclaspt are still.
Behold,
The secret of the world is sex
En, amor regit omnia, vivat rex!
And thus the gray and old
Are turned to gold,
By union and communion of the parts
Divided but then guided by their hearts
That never can be cold,
And shaped anew
Of fire and dew
In the same magic mould.
And thus from wedded grace,
Come fruits and flowers
Through shining showers,
When heaven and earth embrace;
When pleasure meets with pain,
And life and death
Unite their breath,
The man is born again.
From kissing seas and strands,
That kiss and quarrel
With waves and coral,
Uprise new forms and lands.
And rules in all the fates
The sexual thirst,
Which from the first
Creates and recreates.
This quickens every gloom,
And rolls afar
The radiant star,
And makes the crimson bloom.
Behold,
This is the universal law,
Stamped on the petty straw
And on the planet,
And in the frailest fibre of each fold
Whereby all textures hold,
And in the awe
And miracle of earth since God began it.
This is the rule
Of every gas
And mass
And in the movement of each molecule,
The sexual plea
Compelling every atom,
That thrills a cosmic system or a sea,
The lily on the lea,
A churl or Chatham;
Behind the theologian's bloody articles
And forms of iron
As in the pink siren,
And in the mystic strife and dance of particles
Repelling and attracting
Each and all,
In ever-interacting
Rise and fall
And ebb and flow
That quiver to and fro,
This turns the white cheek ruddy
On the maid
Who lingers with her love yet half afraid,
And on the peach that fires the garden wall,
And frames the study
Of some saintly Paul,
An antechamber to the bliss
Of heaven,
With all its holy leaven
In one kiss.
This makes the road so mired less muddy,
Brings
The ragged beggars purple robes of kings
And crowns,
And wipes away the bloody
Frowns
From garments rolled in battle;
And a child
Can draw
By the sweet tether of its law
And tender prattle
Bosoms rude and wild,
And fiercest cattle
Home subdued and mild.
The harlot steps that clamber
To the bed
Beneath the moon's white witness calm and still,
The bloom that is a bridal chamber
Shed
Even as you clasp it at your careless will;
The baby form that shows
A face averted—
A bond asserted,
As the sunrise glows;
The crash of antlered heads,
The lone dark stations
Which duty treads,
The chemist's combinations,
The rush of elements and souls
That marry,
The force that conquers and controls
Prince Harry—
They all are one,
And all alike are done
In man and metal
By the same sweet yoke
That woke
A great peninsula or petal.
The sexual fire
That roses morning's brows
And bows
And tames the Titan's awful ire,
Illumes the glow-worm's lamp
And sets its stamp
Upon the flies that deck
The snowy deck
And midnight tresses of the beauteous Mexican,
And strikes its flame
Of glorious burning shame
In the crabbed student at his musty lexicon.
Two portions of one Broken Heart,
His Heart,
God set apart,
Who fashioned earth and all
And set eternity in great and small
For man to win
And find himself therein
With God;
And by the blessed light of love
Whereby he trod,
Which bound in one bright tether
Though parted things below and things above,
He bade man draw
(By that benignant law)
All things alike in earth and heaven together
Closer and closer still;
That God and man
And Nature
With the one same legislature
Might so be one in will
And perfect being,
And one in seeing
In the shade and shine,
By the great sexual human thirst divine.”
She spoke, and all the wonder
Of all flowers
With flushes drawn from under
By warm showers,
Flashed out in fire asunder
All their powers
Above her and around her,
And the rose
With crimson wreaths enwound her
White repose.
But from her golden tresses
Fell a rain
Of lilies, like caresses
Sweet as pain.
And in her conquering glances
Glowed the light
And love of all romances
And delight.
And, lo, the sound of thunder
Of far climes,
And music with the plunder
From all times!
She breathed on me the story
Of the lands,
And bathed me in the glory
Of her hands;
She clothed me with her kisses
And her grace,
And steeped me in the blisses
Of her face;
Till in me dawned the seeing
Beyond strife,
And through me glowed the being
Of all life.
But then at last
The Vision past,
And left
A rose at rest
Upon my breast
Bereft.
And still at morn
I know the thorn
Must be,
And when it burns
That face returns
To me.
And all the world is that one glorious sight,
And all the world is fire and dew and light.