Classic Poem

I HAVE been lord and spouse to many women,
?And sipped the honey of their lips and hair,
?And found that in the end distaste was there,
Whether their beauty was of Jah or Rimmon.
Queens have I taken out of Set or Sheba,
?And little handmaids with awe-stricken breath,
?And breasted priestesses of Ashtoreth
Prouder than daughters of the kings of Reba.
And I have dallied with them in the palace,
?To plash of fountains in the pallid night.
?Framed have I ever found them for delight,
But in the morning as an empty chalice.
A thousand have I led in fair betrothal,
?Berobed and ankleted and lapped in myrrh.
?Yet not unsoothly have the priests of Hur
Assailed my house as but a bridal brothel.
For love is the anointing oil of passion,
?And no king can a thousand times be crowned.
?So in false oils have I too oft been drowned;
Or, loving not, have sinned, too, in my fashion.
Better it were that I had found one maiden
?Clothed in a thousand veils of chastity
?Than maids a thousand that all eyes could see
Were ready with my king's lust to be laden.
Better it were that I had sought for beauty
?Wedded to wisdom in one breast and face.
?For man, with such, can find a dwelling-place:
'Twixt many all his soul is tossed as booty.
For there is cavil ever at his curtain
?And flesh-temptation ever in his sight.
?By harlotry his strength is shorn each night.
Of but remorseful morrows is he certain.
Better it were some Ruth had crept all fearless
?Into the threshing-floor of this, my heart—
?Where chaff and grain seem never kept apart.
Had it been so, my pillow now were tearless.
And such an one, among the luring many,
?I can remember, tall and straight and calm,
?As rich in promised fruitage as the palm,
One to compare in wisdom-ways with any.
But to my chamber never with enticing
?Came she—and should I call her, I, the King?
?On such a wisp of vanity we swing
Away all that is sure for life's sufficing.
Now she is gone: nor know I how or whither.
?But oft till day breaks and the shadows flee
?I long to have her gaze again at me,
Like the young roe upon the mounts of Bether.
And through the harem aimlessly I wander,
?With loathing sense and soul no beauties please.
?Better a hive of stinging sterile bees,
Or a housetop on which alone to ponder.
For ever the childless and the childed clamour
?Each after gifts, up to the kingdom's crown.
?And Pharaoh's daughter hears—wherefore the frown
Of Egypt from her brow must I enamour.
Sick am I of their glances and embraces,
?Sad am I of their bickerings and strife.
?A thousand wives have I—and yet no wife,
A thousand hills, yet no heart-sheltered places.
Wherefore I say, Women are as pomegranates,
?Tempting our taste that we may spread their seed
?Over the earth: as at creation's need
God scattered over the sky His teeming planets.
Or that as aloes are they, fair and fragrant
?At first, but ah, how bitter at the end.
?Adam would be in Eden, and God's friend,
Had Eve not, at the Serpent's touch, turned vagrant.
There is a spreading tree that men call elah .
?Would I could lie beneath it with that one
?Whose heart would be as moon after the sun.
Instead comes night—and Pharaoh's daughter. Selah .