EDGELL RICKWORD (PEMBROKE)

SINCE I have seen you do those intimate things That other men but dream of; lull asleep The sinister dark forest of your hair, And tie the bows that stir on your calm breast Faintly as leaves that shudder in their sleep. Since I have seen your stocking swallow up, A swift black wind, the pale flame of your foot, And deemed your slender limbs so meshed in silk Sweet mermaid sisters drowned in their dark hair; I have not troubled overmuch with food, And wine has seemed like water from a well; Pavements are built of fire, grass of thin flames. All other girls grow dull as painted flowers Or flutter harmlessly like coloured flies Whose wings are tangled in the net of leaves Spread by frail trees that grow behind the eyes.

WHEN our sweet bodies moulder under-ground, Shut off from these bright waters and clear skies, When we hear nothing but the sullen sound Of dead flesh dropping slowly from the bone And muffled fall of tongue and ears and eyes; Perhaps, as each disintegrates alone, Frail broken vials once brimmed with curious sense, Our souls will pitch old Grossness from his throne, And on the beat of unsubstantial wings Soar to new ecstasies still more intense. There the thin voice of horny, black-legged things Shall thrill me as girls’ laughter thrills me here, And the cold drops a passing storm-cloud flings Be my strong wine, and crawling roots and clods My trees and hills, and slugs swift fallow deer. There I shall dote upon a sexless flower By dream-ghosts planted in my dripping brain, And suck from those cold petals subtler power Than from your colder, whiter flesh could fall, Most vile of girls and lovelier than all. But in your tomb the deathless She will reign And draw new lovers out of rotting sods That your lithe body may for ever squirm Beneath the strange embraces of the worm.

WEEP for me but one day, Dry then your eyes; Think, is a heap of clay Worth a maid’s sighs? Sigh nine days if you can For my waste blood; Think then, you love a man Whose face is mud; Whose flesh and hair thrill not At your faint touch; Dear! limbs and brain will rot, Dream not of such.

“WHAT shall I write?” said Yegor; “Of the bright-plumed bird that sings Hovering on the fringes of the forest, Where leafy dreams are grown, And thoughts go with silent flutterings, Like moths by a dark wind blown?” “Oh, write of those quiet women, Beautiful, slim and pale, Whose bodies glimmer under cool green waters, Whose hands like lilies float Tangled in the heavy purple veil Of hair on their breast and throat.” “Or write of swans and princes Carved out of marble clouds, Of the flowers that wither upon distant mountains, Grey-pencilled in the brain; Of fiercely hurrying night-born crowds By the first swift sun-ray slain.” “Nay, I will sing,” said Yegor, “Of stranger things than these, Of a girl I met in the fresh of morning, A laughing, slender flame; Of the slow stream’s song and the chant of bees, In a land without a name.”

WHEN my girl swims with me I think She is a Shark with hungry teeth, Because her throat that dazzles me Is white as sharks are underneath. And when she drags me down with her Under the wave, she clings so tight, She seems a deadly Water-snake Who smothers me in that dim light. Yet when we lie on the hot sand, I find she cannot bite or hiss, But she swears I’m a Tiger fierce Who kills her slowly with a kiss.