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175
THE FLOWER-SUN.
I
Look on me, my great god, look goldenly!Let my fired maidenhood fold to a flower
With glittering disk where thy bent face can bower
A reflex of thy purple majesty
In the unmitigated heavens: I see
And passion to repeat thy perilous blaze
Athwart my sun-dusked cirque and dazzling rays
Of pointed petal; in the swarthening heat
Of thy mid-orb that flaringly affrays
I bask, a brimming flower-sun at thy feet.
II
Look on me, my great god, look goldenly!Cool-leaved the roses' blushes: to the brink
Of my sun-seething cup I crave to drink
Thy flame of life; no fruit so radiantly
Ripens in thy caress, though scarlet be
The pomegranate's sun-buried seeds, and grand
The gourd's globed glory; none like me is tanned
To Ethiop dusk by thy continuous glare.
I am dark with thee, dreading not to stand
Blazoning thy beams, when the mid heaven is bare.
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III
Look on me, my great god, look goldenly!Once, oh, how golden-gentle was thy face,
When thy right hand reined back thy steeds for grace
Of my half-lifted brow; the other, free,
Thou didst bend over me, and tenderly
Didst round it cupwise to uplift my chin,
And clasp my cheeks my trembling mouth to win
For imprint of thy spirit-piercing kiss:
Then did thy mighty rule in me begin
Straitening to senseless loyalty my bliss.
IV
Look on me, my great god, look goldenlyThough thou beat on me with a bitter scorn,
With strokes that if my frail rose-flesh were worn
Would blast it, I can bear thy cruelty,
Bear anything, so like Leucothoê
I lie not a corpse-exile from thy light:
My petals close not from thee for the night;
Patient in starry solitude, in wide
Weariless golden watch, they wait the bright
Heave of the heavens in the morning-tide.
V
Look on me, my great god, look goldenlyOn thy clear-mirrored self: men think I pine,
Who mellow, burnish, revel in thy shine;
While thou, sad Wooer, looking down must see
Thy white dead Bride, and water fragrantly
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Ravish deserted Klútĭa with thy glow,
Turn thy dimmed gaze where thy Leucothoê lies;
She was warm-breathing when they laid her low
In virginal close chamber from thine eyes.
VI
Look on me, thou great god, look goldenly!Oh, joy to think she feels thee not, nor sees!
I knew not they would bury her: to ease
My heart, where passion blazed funereally
Over dead rapture, “Shall Leucothoê be,
Father,” I urged, “by Phoibos' love beguiled?”
Then fled from memory of the tender child
As I last saw her shrinking from thy kiss
In a soft timorous bashfulness: they piled
Rough earth on that young cheek, nor wrought amiss!
VII
Look on me, my great god, look goldenly!Blur not thy beams; thou must not sport with death
Or touch the sweet dead creature with thy breath,
She may still pleasure thee—a balmy tree
Yield precious frankincense perpetually
As incense for thine altars: that fair doom
I envy not; so only I may bloom
The image of the heaven's throbbing flower,
Drop thou sweet odours on Leucothoê's tomb
On Klútĭa thy consuming lustre shower.
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