D.H. LAWRENCE SEVEN SEALS Since this is the last night I keep you home, Come, I will consecrate you for the journey. Rather I had you would not go. Nay come, I will not again reproach you. Lie back And let me love you a long time ere you go. For you are sullen-hearted still, and lack The will to love me. But even so I will set a seal upon you from my lip, Will set a guard of honour at each door, Seal up each channel out of which might slip Your love for me. I kiss your mouth. Ah, love, Could I but seal its ruddy, shining spring Of passion, parch it up, destroy, remove Its softly-stirring, crimson welling-up Of kisses! Oh, help me, God! Here at the source I'd lie for ever drinking and drawing in Your fountains, as heaven drinks from out their course The floods. I close your ears with kisses And seal your nostrils; and round your neck you'll wear-- Nay, let me work--a delicate chain of kisses. Like beads they go around, and not one misses To touch its fellow on either side. And there Full mid-between the champaign of your breast I place a great and burning seal of love Like a dark rose, a mystery of rest On the slow bubbling of your rhythmic heart. Nay, I persist, and very faith shall keep You integral to me. Each door, each mystic port Of egress from you I will seal and steep In perfect chrism. Now it is done. The mort Will sound in heaven before it is undone. But let me finish what I have begun And shirt you now invulnerable in the mail Of iron kisses, kisses linked like steel. Put greaves upon your thighs and knees, and frail Webbing of steel on your feet. So you shall feel Ensheathed invulnerable with me, with seven Great seals upon your outgoings, and woven Chain of my mystic will wrapped perfectly Upon you, wrapped in indomitable me. * * * * * HAROLD MONRO GRAVITY I Fit for perpetual worship is the power That holds our bodies safely to the earth. When people talk of their domestic gods, Then privately I think of You. We ride through space upon your shoulders Conveniently and lightly set, And, so accustomed, we relax our hold, Forget the gentle motion of your body-- But You do not forget. Sometimes you breathe a little faster, Or move a muscle: Then we remember you, O Master. II When people meet in reverent groups And sing to their domestic God, You, all the time, dear tyrant, (How I laugh!) Could, without effort, place your hand among them, And sprinkle them about the desert. But all your ways are carefully ordered, For you have never questioned duty. We watch your everlasting combinations; We call them Fate; we turn them to our pleasure, And when they most delight us, call them beauty. III I rest my body on your grass, And let my brain repose in you; I feel these living moments pass, And, from within myself to those far places To be imagined in your times and spaces, Deliberate the various acts you do:--