The Hours of Fiammetta | Page 3

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
gracious knight
Kneels to his garlander mid orchard-trees.
Passionate pilgrims, do ye
keep so fast
Your dream of miracles and heights? Ah, shent
And sore-bewildered
shall ye couch at last
In bitter beds of disillusionment.
In the Black Orchard the foul raven
grieves
White Love, on some Montfauçon of the thieves.
X
THE MIRROR-CASES
II
O treasonable heart and perverse words,
Ye darken beauty with your plots of pain!
What languors beat
through me like muted chords?
I know indeed that suffering shall profane
These lovers, sweet as
viols or violet-spices.
Strangely must end their dreamy chess-playing,
Strange wounds
amaze their broidered Paradises,
And stain the falconry and garlanding.
Their bodies must be broken
as on wheels,
Their souls be carded with implacable shame,--
Molten like wax, be
crushed beneath the seals
Of sin and penance. Yet, with wings aflame,
Love, Love more lovely,
like a triumpher,
Shall break his malefactor's sepulchre.

XI
THE PASSION-FLOWER
The passion-flower bears in her violet Cup
The senses of her bridal, and they seem
Symbols of sacred
pangs,--Love lifted up
To expiate the beauty of his dream.
Come and adore, ye crafty
imagers,
This piece of ivory and amethyst.
Let Music, Colour, decorated
Verse,
Meditate, each like some sad lutanist,
This Paten, and the marvels it
uncovers,
Identities of joy and anguish. Rod,
Nails, bitter garlands, all ecstatic
lovers
Blindly repeat the dolours of a God.
Subdue this mournful matter
unto Art,
Ivory, amethyst, serene of heart.
XII
THE VOICE OF LOVE
I
"Mine, mine!" saith Love, "Deny me many times.
Yet mine that body wherein mine arrow thrills,
And mine the fugitive
soul that bleeding climbs
Hunting a vision on the frozen hills.
Mine are her stigmata, sad
rhapsodist.--

And when to the delighted bridal-bowers
They bring thee starlike
through the silver mist
Of music and canticles and myrtle-flowers,
And the dark hour bids
the consentless heart
Surrender to disillusion, since in all
The labyrinth of deed no
counterpart
Can pattern Passion's archetype, nor shall
The chalice of sense endure
her flaming wine,
Superb and bitter dreamer, thou most art mine."
XIII
THE VOICE OF LOVE
II
"Mine, mine!" saith Love, "Although ye serve no more
Mine images of ivory and bronze
With flute-led dances of the days of
yore,
But leave them to barbarian orisons
Of dull hearth-loving hearts,
mistaking me:
Yet from mine incense ye shall not divorce
Remembrance. Fools,
these recantations be
Ardours that prove you still idolators;
And, though ye hurry through
the circling hells
Of bright ambition like hopes and energies,
That haste bewrays you.
My great doctrine dwells
Immortal in those fevered heresies,
And all the inversions of my rites
proclaim
The mournful memory of mine altar-flame."

XIV
DREAM-GHOSTS
White house of night, too much the ghosts come through
Your crazy doors, to vex and startle me,
Touching with curious
fingers cold as dew
Kissing with unloved kisses fierily
That dwell, slow fever, through
my veins all day,
And fill my senses as the dead their graves.
They are builded in my
castles and bridges? Yea,
Not therefore must my dreams become their slaves.
If once we passed
some kindness, must they still
Sway me with weird returns and dim disgust?--
Though even in sleep
the absolute bright Will
Would exorcise them, saying, "These are but dust,"
They show sad
symbols, that, when I awaken,
I never can deny I have partaken.
XV
MEMORIA SUBMERSA
Can souls forget what bodies keep the while?
Is this among their dark antinomies?
The spiritual joy is volatile:
The flesh is faithful to her memories.
This living silk, this inarticulate
Remembrance of the nerves enwinds us fast:
Delicate cells, obscure
and obstinate,
Secrete the bitter essence of the Past.
Ah! Was the fading web of rose

and white
All macerated by the kisses of old
As rare French queens with
perfume? (So, by night,
They lived like lilies mid their cloth-of-gold.)
Within the sense,
howe'er the soul abjure,
Like flavours and fumes these ancient things
endure.
XVI
A PORTRAIT BY VENEZIANO
Strange dancing-girl with curls of golden wire,
With strait white veil, and sinister jewel strung
Upon your brows,