After you speak
And what you meant
Is plain,
My eyes
Meet yours that mean,
With your cheeks and hair,
Something more wise,
More dark,
And far different.
Even so the lark
Loves dust
And nestles in it
The minute
Before he must
Soar in lone flight
So far,
Like a black star
He seems -
A mote
Of singing dust
Afloat
Above,
The dreams
And sheds no light.
I know your lust
Is love.
For I can snore like a bullhorn
or play loud music
or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman
and Fergus will only sink deeper
into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash,
but let there be that heavy breathing
or a stifled come-cry anywhere in the house
and he will wrench himself awake
and make for it on the run - as now, we lie together,
after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies,
familiar touch of the long-married,
'Tumble and rumble, and grumble and snort,
Like a whale to starboard, a whale to port;
Tumble and rumble, and grumble and snort,
And the steamer steams thro' the sea, love!'
'I see the ship on the sea, love,
I stand alone
On this rock,
The sea does not shock
The stone;
The waters around it are swirled,
But under my feet
I feel it go down
To where the hemispheres meet
At the adamant heart of the world.
Oh, that the rock would move!
Oh, that the rock would roll
Thy kingdom come ! Yea, bid it come!
But when Thy kingdom first began
On earth, Thy kingdom was a home,
A child, a woman, and a man.
The child was in the midst thereof,
O, blessed Jesus, holiest One!
The centre and the fount of love
Mary and Joseph's little Son.
Wherever on the earth shall be
A child, a woman, and a man,
Imaging that sweet trinity
Wherewith Thy kingdom first began,
Establish there Thy kingdom! Yea,
And o'er that trinity of love
Wild words I write, and lettered in deep pain,
To lay in your loved hand as love's farewell.
It is the thought we shall not meet again
Nerves me to write and my whole secret tell.
For when I speak to you, you only jest,
And laughing break the sentence with a kiss,
Till my poor love is never quite confessed,
Nor know you half its tears and tenderness.
When the first darkness and the clouds began
I hid it from you fearing your reproof;
I would not vex your life's high aim and plan
With my poor woman's woe, and held aloof.
The day draws nigh, methinks, when I could stay
Calm in thy presence with no dream of ill,
When, having put all earthliness away,
I could be near thee, touching thee, and still
Feel no mad throbbing at my foolish heart,
No sudden rising of unbidden tears,
Could mark thee come and go, to meet our part,
Without the gladness and without the fears.
Have patience with me then for this short space.
I shall be wise, but may not yet unmoved
See a strange woman put into my place
And happy in thy love, as I was loved:
I
She has laughed as softly as if she sighed,
She has counted six, and over,
Of a purse well filled, and a heart well tried -
Oh, each a worthy lover!
They "give her time"; for her soul must slip
Where the world has set the grooving;
She will lie to none with her fair red lip:
But love seeks truer loving.
II
So vast the tide of Love within me surging,
It overflows like some stupendous sea,
The confines of the Present and To-be;
And 'gainst the Past's high wall I feel it urging,
As it would cry "Thou too shalt yield to me!"
All other loves my supreme love embodies;
I would be she on whose soft bosom nursed
Thy clinging infant lips to quench their thirst;
She who trod close to hidden worlds where God is,
That she might have, and hold, and see thee first.
I would be she who stirred the vague fond fancies,
Oh, the world is all too rude for thee, with much ado and care;
Oh, this world is but a rude world, and hurts a thing so fair;
Was there a nook in which the world had never been to sear,
That place would prove a paradise when thou and Love were near.
And there to pluck the blackberry, and there to reach the sloe,
How joyously and happily would Love thy partner go;
Then rest when weary on a bank, where not a grassy blade
Had eer been bent by Trouble's feet, and Love thy pillow made.
Air.
Love in her eyes sits playing,
And sheds delicious death;
Love on her lips is straying,
And warbling in her breath;
Love on her breast sits panting,
And swells with soft desire;
Nor grace nor charm is wanting
To set the heart on fire.
Air.
O ruddier than the cherry!
O sweeter than the berry!
O Nymph more bright
Than moonshine night,
Like kidlings blithe and merry!
Ripe as the melting cluster!
No lily has such lustre;
Yet hard to tame
As raging flame,
