The Heptalogia | Page 3

his sail duly to leeward!
XIV
Trust me? Hardly! I bid you not lean (remark)
On my spirit, your
spirit--my flesh, your flesh--
Hold my hand, and tread safe through
the horrible dark--
Quench my soul as with sprinklings of snow, then
refresh
With some blast of new bellows the spark!
XV
By no means! This were easy (men tell me) to say--
"Give her all,
throw your chance up, fall back on her heart!" (Say my friends) "she

must change! after night follows day--" No such fool! I am safe set in
hell, for my part--
So let heaven do the worst now he may!
XVI
What they bid me? Well, this, nothing more--"Tell her this-- 'You are
mine, I yours, though the whole world fail--
Though things are not, I
know there is one thing which is-- Though the oars break, there's hope
for us yet--hoist the sail! Oh, your heart! what's the heart? but your
kiss!'
XVII
"Then she breaks, she drops down, she lies flat at your feet-- Take her
then!" Well, I knew it--what fools are men!
Take the bee by her horns,
will your honey prove sweet?
Sweet is grass--will you pasture your
cows in a fen?
Oh, if contraries could but once meet!
XVIII
Love you call it? Some twitch in the moon's face (observe), Wet blink
of her eyelid, tear dropt about dewfall,
Cheek flushed or
obscured--does it make the sky swerve?
Fetch the test, work the
question to rags, bring to proof all-- Find what souls want and bodies
deserve!
XIX
Ah, we know you! Your soul works to infinite ends,
Frets, uses life
up for death's sake, takes pains,
Flings down love's self--"but you,
bear me witness, my friends! Have I lost spring? count up (see) the
winter's fresh gains! Is the shrub spoilt? the pine's hair impends!"
XX
What, you'd say--"Mark how God works! Years crowd, time wears thin,
Earth keeps good yet, the sun goes on, stars hold their own, And you'll

change, climb past sight of the world, shift your skin, Never heeding
how life moans--'more flesh now, less bone!' For that cheek's worn
waste outline (death's grin)
XXI
"Pleads with time still--'what good if I lose this? but see--'" (There's the
crab gone!) "'I said, "Though earth sinks,"'" (you perceive? Ah, true,
back there!) your soul now--"'"yet some vein might be (Could one find
it alive in the heart's core's pulse, cleave Through the life-springs where
"you" melts in "me")--
XXII
"'"Some true vein of the absolute soul, which survives
All that flesh
runs to waste through"--and lo, this fails! Here's death close on us! One
life? a million of lives!
Why choose one sail to watch of these infinite
sails?
Time's a tennis-play? thank you, no, fives!
XXIII
"'Stop life's ball then!' Such folly! melt earth down for that, Till the
pure ore eludes you and leaves you raw scoriæ?
Pish, the vein's
wrong!" But you, friends--come, what were you at When God spat you
out suddenly? what was the story He
Cut short thus, the growth He
laid flat?
XXIV
Wait! the crab's twice alive, mark! Oh, worthy, your soul,
Of strange
ends, great results, novel labours! Take note, I reject this for one! (ay,
now, straight to the hole!
Safe in sand there--your skirts smooth out
all as they float!) I, shirk drinking through flaws in the bowl?
XXV
Or suppose now that rock's cleft--grim, scored to the quick, As a man's

face kept fighting all life through gets scored, Mossed and marked with
grey purulent leprosies, sick,
Flat and foul as man's life here (be swift
with your sword-- Cut the soul out, stuck fast where thorns prick!)
XXVI
--Say it let the rock's heart out, its meaning, the thing
All was made
for, devised, ruled out gradually, planned-- Ah, that sea-shell,
perhaps--since it lies, such a ring
Of pure colour, a cup full of
sunbeams, to stand
(Say, in Lent) at the priest's hand--(no king!)
XXVII
Blame the cleft then? Praise rather! So--just a chance gone! Had you
said--"Save the seed and secure souls in flower"-- Ah, how time laughs,
years palpitate, pro grapples con,
Till one day you shrug
shoulders--"Well, gone, the good hour!" Till one night--"Is God off
now? or on?"
IV
UP THE SPOUT
I
Hi! Just you drop that! Stop, I say!
Shirk work, think slink off, twist
friend's wrist?
Where that spined sand's lined band's the bay--
Lined
blind with true sea's blue, as due--
Promising--not to pay?
II
For the sea's debt leaves wet the sand;
Burst worst fate's weights in
one burst gun?
A man's own yacht, blown--What? off land?
Tack
back, or veer round here, then--queer!
Reef points,
though--understand?
III

I'm blest if I do. Sigh? be blowed!
Love's doves make break life's
ropes, eh? Tropes!
Faith's brig, baulked, sides caulked, rides at road;

Hope's gropes befogged, storm-dogged and bogged--
Clogged,
water-logged, her load!
IV
Stowed, by Jove, right and tight, away!
No show now how best
plough sea's brow,
Wrinkling--breeze quick, tease thick, ere day,

Clear sheer