I was diligent to explore you, Blossom you stalk by stalk, Till my fire of creation bore you Shrivelling down in the final dour Anguish--then I suffered a balk. I knew your pain, and it broke My fine, craftsman's nerve; Your body quailed at my stroke, And my courage failed to give you the last Fine torture you did deserve. You are shapely, you are adorned, But opaque and dull in the flesh, Who, had I but pierced with the thorned Fire-threshing anguish, were fused and cast In a lovely illumined mesh. Like a painted window: the best Suffering burnt through your flesh, Undrossed it and left it blest With a quivering sweet wisdom of grace: but now Who shall take you afresh? Now who will burn you free From your body's terrors and dross, Since the fire has failed in me? What man will stoop in your flesh to plough The shrieking cross? A mute, nearly beautiful thing Is your face, that fills me with shame As I see it hardening, Warping the perfect image of God, And darkening my eternal fame. MYSTERY Now I am all One bowl of kisses, Such as the tall Slim votaresses Of Egypt filled For a God's excesses. I lift to you My bowl of kisses, And through the temple's Blue recesses Cry out to you In wild caresses. And to my lips' Bright crimson rim The passion slips, And down my slim White body drips The shining hymn. And still before The altar I Exult the bowl Brimful, and cry To you to stoop And drink, Most High. Oh drink me up That I may be Within your cup Like a mystery, Like wine that is still In ecstasy. Glimmering still In ecstasy, Commingled wines Of you and me In one fulfil The mystery. PATIENCE A WIND comes from the north Blowing little flocks of birds Like spray across the town, And a train, roaring forth, Rushes stampeding down With cries and flying curds Of steam, out of the darkening north. Whither I turn and set Like a needle steadfastly, Waiting ever to get The news that she is free; But ever fixed, as yet, To the lode of her agony. BALLAD OF ANOTHER OPHELIA OH the green glimmer of apples in the orchard, Lamps in a wash of rain! Oh the wet walk of my brown hen through the stack-yard, Oh tears on the window pane! Nothing now will ripen the bright green apples, Full of disappointment and of rain, Brackish they will taste, of tears, when the yellow dapples Of autumn tell the withered tale again. All round the yard it is cluck, my brown hen, Cluck, and the rain-wet wings, Cluck, my marigold bird, and again Cluck for your yellow darlings. For the grey rat found the gold thirteen Huddled away in the dark, Flutter for a moment, oh the beast is quick and keen, Extinct one yellow-fluffy spark. Once I had a lover bright like running water, Once his face was laughing like the sky; Open like the sky looking down in all its laughter On the buttercups, and the buttercups was I.