There knocked One nightly at the harlot’s house; Wan was His mouth as kisses without love. His groping fingers followed tremulous The winding of her delicate thin veins; He traced the waxen contour of her breast, And then, as baffled in some strange pursuit, Drew her to Him in weariest embrace; And, as she shuddered in His grasp, He watched, Still passionless, the working of her throat. The woman’s cheek grew crimson as He gazed, But He, a scowling and disgruntled guest, Rose white and famished from her body’s feast. Yet one night, pausing half-way, He turned back, Lured by the wraith of long-departed hope; And then He asked of her a monstrous thing. The strumpet blanched and, rising from the couch, Spat in His face. Straightway the Stranger’s eye Blazoned exultant with the pilgrim’s joy When ends the quest. He lifted up His hands In quiet benediction, and a light Miraculous upon His forehead shone. But she, being blind, still cursed Him, and reviled: “Albeit I sell my body for very shame I am a woman, not a beast; but thou----” “And I,” quoth he, “a Seeker after God....” ATTAR OF SONG Like Lilith, mother Lilith, I have wound About my heart the serpent of desire. A purple galleon on a sea of fire Has borne my footsteps to forbidden ground, Where glittering with corruption of all time, Death in its shadow, dreams the Upas tree; But with its dew, as sugar sucks the bee, I have enriched the honeycomb of rhyme. A riot of strange roses is my life-- Pale as Narcissus gazing wistfully, And crimson red as the great Rose of Strife Upon the zone of Menelaus’ wife,-- Distilled by love with lyric alchemy, Heart of my heart, into one song for thee. THE BURIED CITY My heart is like a city of the gay Reared on the ruins of a perished one, Wherein my dead loves cower from the sun, White-swathed like kings, the Pharaohs of a day. Within the buried city stirs no sound Save for the bat, forgetful of the rod, Perched on the knee of some deserted god, And for the groan of rivers underground. Stray not, my Love, ’mid the sarcophagi, Tempt not the silence ... for the fates are deep, Lest all the dreamers deeming doomsday nigh Leap forth in terror from their haunted sleep; And, like the peal of an accursèd bell, Thy voice call ghosts of dead things back from hell! TRIUMPHATRIX As some great monarch in triumphal train Holds in his thrall an hundred captive kings, Guard thou the loves of all my vanished springs To wait as handmaids on thy sweet disdain. And thou shalt wear their tresses like bright rings, For their defeat perpetuates thy reign! With thy imperious girlhood vie in vain The pallid hosts of all old poignant things.