SCEPTIC

This hour has shut us like a tent From all but night; we two, alone, So close, so poignantly alert, have grown, That trivial speech, from silence rent, Breaks off—a useless instrument. For all the opening world is ours, And you, tho scarce a woman yet, Your eyes with feasts of lights and vintage set, Hold all the dewy wealth of flowers, And gold of Babylonian towers. Our lives will alter if we move— It were so easy now to rise And tell my unimpassioned soul it lies— And claim youth’s heritage of love, Let bald life prove what it may prove! It were so easy to conceive Your lack my lack would compensate— And by one stroke undo the knot of fate; It were so easy to believe The lies that such a thing could weave! Or shall I stumble through the night Biting my lips to hold the tears Because your incommunicable years Must spend their summer of delight Without my reach—beyond my sight? The house is still; the midnight seems Inscrutable—no answer there. Oh God!—to break this tension of despair. Between us the calm lamplight streams— “Good night!” and “Pleasant dreams!”—yes—dreams.

I would I had lain with my love to-night; Her eyes trembled for her body said, “I have smoothed a pillow and made a bed”— But I smiled against it And turned away my head To come into the cold starlight. I would I had lain with my love to-night, For I know how flowers are shed, And the cynical scintillant stars are dead— Dead, dead utterly! Yet I turned away my head To come into the cold starlight. I would I had lain with my love to-night! Oh, indolent Gods, we too can tread On the silent spirits, the uncomforted! She did not reproach me, Tho I turned away my head And came into the starlight.

Love (as a cloud on the sea Hung between poles of blue) Hangs in the heart of me Between the eyes of you. Love, as a cloud on the sea, Claims the tears of two. Love (as a wind in a tree Shaking its tower of green) Shakes all the heart of me And leaves no peace between. Love, as the wind the tree Tears with hands unseen. Love (as a storm on the sea Shatters the sleep of the wave) Shatters the heart of me With desires that grope and crave. Love, as the storm the sea, Boasts not me his slave.

You, flower-named, and as a flower arrayed, Open to all the wandering airs that pass, Opened to me—yet I drew back afraid, Craven to the blood that would have preyed And the sly viper coiling in the grass.

Love, when you smiled and beckoned My cold thought stood aloof and reckoned Some heights above you. But now you have turned and gone Smiling, fugitive as dawn, I know (oh fool!) I love you.

Love, with her queen’s face and child lips Walked at my side; her hair about her head Streamed, with riotous and exuberant spread Like sails and cordage of sea-breasting ships, And as the tides, her mirthful glints and dips Tugged at my anchor’d calmness—then she said, Chilling to gravity, “You are lead.” It was as when the bright blade cruelly slips, For in my soul that hid its vain desires Under closed hatch, I knew the stifled fires Devoured in silence, as stealthy serpents writhe Their folds about their prey; and seemed to hear The passing of some irrevocable year, And faint for whistle of a monstrous scythe.

Pain of widest range— The intimate grown strange.