The Hours of Fiammetta | Page 2

Rachel Annand Taylor
IRONIST.
LVIII. IN VAIN.
LIX.
RESERVATIONS.
LX. THE NEW LOVE.
LXI. THE WAYS
OF LOVE.
THE EPILOGUE OF THE DREAMING WOMEN.
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
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