class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">THE WAYS OF LOVE.

THE PROLOGUE OF THE DREAMING WOMEN

We carry spices to the gods.
     For this are we wrought curiously,
     All vain-desire and reverie,
To carry spices to the gods.

We carry spices to the gods.
     Sacred and soft as lotos-flowers
     Are those long languorous hands of ours
That carry spices to the gods.

We know their roses and their rods,
     Having in pale spring-orchards seen
     Their cruel eyes, and in the green
Strange twilights having met the gods.

Sometimes we tire. Upon the sods
     We set the great enamels by,
     Wherein the occult odours lie,
And play with children on the sods.

Yet soon we take, O jealous gods,
     Those gracious caskets once again,
     Storied with oracles of pain,
That keep the spices for the gods.

We carry spices to the gods.
     Like sumptuous cold chalcedony
     Our weary breasts and hands must be
To carry spices to the gods.

I

THE PRELUDE

Thou sayest, "O pure Palace of my Pleasures,
     O Doors of Ivory, let the King come in.
With silver lamps before him, and with measures
     Of low lute-music let him come. Begin,
Ye suppliant lilies and ye frail white roses,
     Imploring sweetnesses of hands and eyes,
To let Love through to the most secret closes
     Of all his flowery Court of Paradise." . . .
Sunder the jealous gates. Thine ivory Castle
     Is hung with scarlet, is the Convent of Pain.
With purple and with spice indeed the Vassal
     Receives her King whom dark desires constrain.
Rejoice, rejoice!—But far from flutes and dances
The cloistered Soul lies frozen in her trances.

II

PERILS

Ah! Since from subtle silk of agony
     Our veils of lamentable flesh are spun,
Since Time in spoiling violates, and we
     In that strait Pass of Pangs may be undone,
Since the mere natural flower and withering
     Of these our bodies terribly distil
Strange poisons, since an alien Lust may fling
     On any autumn day some torch to fill
Our pale Pavilion of dreaming lavenders
     With frenzy, till it is a Tower of Flame
Wherein the soul shrieks burning, since the myrrhs
     And music of our beauty are mixed with shame
Inextricable,—some drug of poppies give
This bitter ecstasy whereby we live!

III

THE PEACE TO BE

Quell this consuming fever, quickly give
     Some drug of poppies white!—But Peace will come?
O ashen savourless alternative,
     Quietude of the blind and deaf and dumb
That all swift motions must alike assuage,—
     When we are exiled from youth's golden hosts
To pace the calm cold terraces of age,
     With unvexed senses, being but houseled ghosts,
Wise, with the uncoloured wisdom of the souls
     With whom great passions have no more to do,
Serene, since ours the dusty arles Death doles,
     Oblivions dim of all there is to rue!—
Peace comes to hearts of whom proud Love has tired;
Beyond all danger dwell the undesired.

IV

STATUES

The great Greek lovers of gold and ivory things,
     Austere and perfect things, albeit they wrought
Girl-shapes with driven raiment, conquering wings,
     And smiling queens of Cnidos, turned and sought
A more inviolate beauty that should keep
     Their secret dream. Their grave sweet geniuses
Of love and death, of rapture or of sleep,
     Are delicately severed from all excess.—
Ah! suppliant, honey-white, the languor cleaves
     About the dolorous weak body He,
The Dark Eros, with staunchless spear-thrust grieves;
     Heavy the seal of that mortality.
No wounds disgrace the haughty acolytes
Of heavenly sorrows, of divine delights.

V

THE WEDDING-GARMENT

Thought it be blither than roses in thine eyes,
     Shall I not rend this raiment of pangs and fears,
This Colchian cloth white flames ensorcelise,
     This gaudy-veil distained with blood and tears?—
What praise? "O marriage-beauty garlanded
     For festival, O sumptuous flowery stole
For rites of adoration!"—See instead
     A cilice drenched with torment of my soul!
Nevertheless the fibres implicate
     Proud exultations; burning, have revealed
Rich throes of triumph, sweetness passionate
     As painèd lilies reared in thorn-plots yield.
Ah! silver wedding-garment of the bride,
Ah! fiery cilice, I am satisfied!

VI

THE DEATH OF PROCRIS

Come gaze on Procris, poor soon-perished child!
     Why did her innocent virginity
Follow Desire within his arrowy wild?
     She dies pursuing the cruel ecstasy
That keeps as mortal wounds for them that find.
     Serene her pensive body lies at last
Like a mown poppy-flower to sleep resigned,
     Softly resigned. The wildwood things aghast,
With pitiful hearts instinctive, sweet as hers,
     Approach her now: love, death, and virgin grace,
Blue distance, and the stricken foresters,
     And all the dreaming, healing, woodland place
Are patterned into tender melodies
Of lovely line and hue—a music of peace!

VII

THE WARNING

As delicate gorgeous rains of dusky gold
     Heavy white lilies, Love importunate
Besets the soul,—as that wild Splendour told
     Pale Danaë her haughty heavenly fate.
Not speared in burning points but spun in strands
     My senses: drowsily burning webs are they
That veil me head to foot. While on mine hands
     And hair and lids thy kisses die away
Through all my being their strange echoes thrill
     And from the body's flowery mysticism
I draw the last white honey. What is thine ill?
     What wouldst thou more of that great symbolism?
Beyond this ultimate moment nothing lies
But moonless cold and darkness. Ah! be wise!

VIII

THE ACCUSATION

Mere night! The unconsenting Soul stands by,
     A moaning protestant. "Ah, not for this,
And not for this, through rose and thorn was I
     Drawn to surrender and the bridal-kiss.
Annunciations lit with jewelled wings
     Of sudden angels mid the lilies tall,
Proud prothalamia chaunting enraptured things,—
     O sumptuous fables, why so prodigal
Of masque and music, of dreams like foam-white swans
     On lakes of hyacinthus? Must Love seek
Great allies, Beauty sound her arrière-bans
     That all her splendours betray us to this bleak
Simplicity whereto blind satyrs run?"—
The irony seems old, old as the sun.

IX

THE MEDIEVAL MIRROR-CASES

I

Rondels of old French ivory to-day
     (Poor perished beauty's deathless mirror-cases!)
Reveal to me the delicate amorous play
     Of reed-like flowering folk with pointed faces.
Lovers ride hawking; over chess delight;
     The Castle of Ladies renders up its keys,
Its roses all being flung; a