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Sonnets from Manuscripts Circa 1900 1901
O face that I have loved until no face Beneath the quiet heavens such glory wear, They say you are not beautiful, — no snare Of twilight in the changing mysticness Or deep enhaloed secrecy of hair, Soft largeness in the eyes I dare not kiss! Unreal all your bosom’s dreadful bliss. Too narrow are your brows they say to bear The temple of vast beauty in its span Or chaste cold bosom to house fierily Beauty that maddens all the heart of man. I know not; this I know that utterly My soul is by some magic curls surprised, Some glances have my heart immortalized.
I cannot equal those most absolute eyes, Although they rule my being, with the stars, Nor floral rich comparisons devise To detail sweetness that your body wears. Nor in the heavens hints of you I find, Nor dim suggestions in this thoughtful eve; The moonlight of your darker grace is blind. Who can with such pale delicacies deceive A naked burning heart? Only one place Satisfies me of you, where the feet That I shall never clasp, with beauty press The barren earth in one place only sweet, One face in the wide world alone divine, The only one that never can be mine.
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O letter dull and cold, how can she read Gladly these lifeless lines, no fire that prove, When others even their passionate hearts exceed Caressing her sweet name with words of love? O me that I could force this barrier, turn My heart to syllables, make all desire One burning word, then would my letters yearn With some reflection of that hidden fire. Ah if I could, what then? This fiery pit Within for human eyes was never meant. All hearts would view with horror or with hate A picture not of earthly lineament. Yourself even, sweet, would start with terror back As at the hissing of a sudden snake.
My life is wasted like a lamp ablaze Within a solitary house unused, My life is wasted and by Love men praise For sweet and kind. How often have I mused What lovely thing were love and much repined At my cold bosom moved not by that flame. ‘Tis kindled; lo, my dreadful being twined Round one whom to myself I dare not name. I cannot quench the fire I did not light And he that lit it will not; I cannot even Drive out the guest I never did invite; Although the soul he dwells with loses heaven. I burn and know not why; I sink to hell Fruitlessly and am forbidden to rebel.
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Because thy flame is spent, shall mine grow less, O bud, O wonder of the opening rose? Why both my soul and Love it would disgrace If I could trade in love, begin and close My long account of passion, like a book Of merchant’s credit given to be repaid, Or not returned, struck off with lowering look Like a bad debt uncritically made. What thou couldst give, thou gav’st me, one sweet smile Worth all the sunlight that the years contain, One month of months when thy sweet spirit awhile Fluttered o’er mine half-thinking to remain. What I could give, I gave thee, to my last breath Immortal love, immovable by death.
Thou didst mistake, thy spirit’s infant flight Opening its lovely wings upon the sun Paused o’er the first strong bloom that met thy sight Thinking perhaps it was the only one. But all this fragrant garden was beyond. Winds came to thee with hints of honey; day Disclosed a brighter hope than this unsunned Thought-sheltered heart and called thee far away. Thou didst mistake. Must I then rage, grow ill, With tortured vanity and think it love, Miscall with brutal names my lady’s will Fouling thy snowwhite image, O my dove? Is not thy kiss enough, though only one, For all eternity to live upon?
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Rose, I have loved thy beauty, as I love The dress that thou hast worn, the transient grass, O’er which thy happy careless footsteps move, The yet-thrilled waysides that have watched thee pass. Soul, I have loved thy sweetness as men love The necessary air they crave to breathe, The sunlight lavished from the skies above, And firmness of the earth their steps beneath. But were that beauty all, my love might cease Like love of weaker spirits; were’t thy charm And grace of soul, mine might with age decrease Or find in Death a silence and a term, But rooted in the unnameable in thee Shall triumph and transcend eternity.
I have a hundred lives before me yet To grasp thee in, O spirit ethereal, Be sure I will with heart insatiate Pursue thee like a hunter through them all. Thou yet shalt turn back on the eternal way And with awakened vision watch me come Smiling a little at errors past, and lay Thy eager hand in mine, its proper home. Meanwhile made happy by thy happiness I shall approach thee in things and people dear And in thy spirit’s motions half-possess Loving what thou hast loved, shall feel thee near, Until I lay my hands on thee indeed Somewhere among the stars, as ’twas decreed.
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Still there is something that I lack in thee And yet must find. There is a broad abyss Between possession and true sovereignty Which thou must bridge with a diviner kiss. I questioned all the beauty of other girls Thinking thou hadst it not to give indeed. But not Giannina’s breasts nor Pippa’s curls Contained it; thou alone canst meet my need. Deniest thou some secret of thy soul To me who claim thee all? Nay, can it be Thy bosom’s joys escape from my control? Forbid it Heaven Hell should yawn for thee. Deny it now! Let not sweet love begun End in red blood and awful justice done.
I have a doubt, I have a doubt which kills. Tell me, O torturing beauty, O divine Witchcraft, O soul escaped from heaven’s hills Yet fed upon strange food of utter sin. Why dost thou torture me? Hast thou no fear? My love was ever like my hate a sword To search the heart and kill however dear The joy that would not own me for its lord. Yet must I still believe that thou art true If thou wilt say it and smile. Knowst thou not then I have purchased with my passion all of you And wilt thou keep one nook for other men? Deny it now! Let not sweet love begun End in red blood and awful justice done.
Page – 181 To weep because a glorious sun
To weep because a glorious sun has set Which the next morn shall gild the east again, To mourn that mighty strengths must yield to fate Which by that fall a double force attain, To shrink from pain without whose friendly strife Joy could not be, to make a terror of death Who smiling beckons us to farther life And is a bridge for the persistent breath; Despair and anguish and the tragic grief Of dry set eyes or such disastrous tears As rend the heart though meant for its relief And all man’s ghastly company of fears Are born of folly that believes this span Of brittle life can limit immortal man.
What is this talk of slayer and of slain? Swords are not sharp to slay nor floods assuage This flaming soul. Mortality and pain Are mere conventions of a mightier stage. As when a hero by his doom pursued Falls like a pillar of the huge world uptorn Shaking the hearts of men and awe-imbued, Silent the audience sits or weeps forlorn, Meanwhile behind the stage the actor sighs Deep-lunged relief, puts off what he has been And talks with friends that waited or from the flies Watches the quiet of the closing scene, Even so the unwounded spirits of the slain Beyond our vision passing live again.
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