Clouds without Water/The Initiation
The Initiation
I
Lola! now look me straight between the eyes. Our fate is come upon us. Tell me now Love still shall arbitrate our destinies, And joy inform the swart Plutonic brow.Behold! the doom foreseen, the doom embraced, Fastens its fang; the gods of death and birth Make friends to slay us, Pilate interlaced With Herod in obscene and muderous mirth.Lola! come close! confront them! Let us read The book once sealed, now open to our gaze! Avenge our love and vindicate our breed With courage to the ending of the days.Since fall we must, o arm ourselves aright, Fall fighting in the forefront of the fight!
II
First: let us face the foemen, number them, Measure their arms! Who smiteth us? We wove In grove and garden many a diadem Dewy with all the purity of love.The Hermes of the orchard lets the string Slip from his finger, and the arrow speeds Striking our love beneath the flamy wing So that the heart of heaven breaks and bleeds.That poisoned shaft fed with corrupting germs Hath stricken us to earth: the wound corrodes, Breeding within us all its noisome worms, All the black larvae of the accurst abodes:—The virgin of our reed-shrill ecstasies Raped by the stinking satyr of disease!
III
I who have loved you—shall I love you now, Your teeth dropt out, your fair flesh fallen away, The Crown of Venus on you itching brow, The coppery flush, the leprous scurf of grey?The god that rots the líving flesh of man Fills up your mouth—one ulcer—with his groans And all our blessings choke and turn to ban The beast that gnaws the marrow of our bones.Caught in corrupt caresses of disease, Shall we dispute us with his fervour, fain To woo with sores your turbid arteries And kiss black ulcers in your spotted brain?We married close, my Lola, with a kiss:— Now for the lifelong lover, Syphilis!
IV
Yea! but we love. We win. The body's curse Is bitter, but he hath not won the whole. There's more than life in this brave universe. Death cannot touch the secret of the soul!Nor shall we shrink, although this further pang Strike through the liver with its fiery dart, The hope—the horrid hope—whose gleaming fang Now stirs, a serpent's, underneath your heart!For lo! not vainly we invoked the god That looseneth the girdle of a maid; Even now draws nigh the dreadful period That maketh all the mother-world afraid.With rotten fruit your belly is grown big —Thanks to the bastard god that cursed the fig!
V
Your swollen neck is grown a swollen breast Gushing with poisoned milk; your breath is caught In quick sharp gasps; you get nor sleep rest, The monster moving in you in his sport.Surely a monster! some unnatural thing, Some Minotaur of shame, no egg of pride To hatch the miniature of love and spring In your own image, subtly glorified.White swan you were! not Zeus but Cerberus Hath ravished you; you brood on harpy eggs— Sweet sister! is the wine too sour for us? We have drunk deep—nay! nay! but to the dregs!And all their bitterness is braver brew Than the dull syrup of the pious crew.
VI
Still we can laugh at burgesses and churls In our excess of agony and lust. We pity these poor prudes, insipid girls And tepid boys, these creatures of the dust.We pity all these meal-mouthed montebanks That prate of Jesus, ethics, faith and reason, These jerry-built dyspeptics, stuccoed cranks, Their lives one dreary plain, one moist dull seasonLike their grey land. O costive crapulence! They ache and strain within the water-closet Of church and State, their shocked bleat of offence: "This poet's life was such a failure". Was it?Fools! our worst boredom was a loftier thrill Than all you ever felt—or ever will.
VII
If we are weary, it is flesh that faints. We cannot bear such worlds of happiness. Even in this torture that consumes and taints, We writhe in bliss, one terrible caressOf the great Gods of Hell. Ah! surely, dear, Our way is wise, transcending human woe: We are most happy and of great good cheer. What do we know? It matters not. We know.This is enough, that we have slain the Sphinx, Worked out her wizardry, dissolved her doom; And though her wine be death to him that drinks We shall carouse for ever in the tomb.We drank bull's blood; and all our pangs immense Are better than eupeptic innocence.
VIII
Ah! if flesh fails, may we not also fail? May not the vulture liars gather round Our death-beds, and drone out their dismal tale With drawl and whine, the Galilean soundOf snuffle and twang? May not their stinking souls Interpret our last sighs as penitence When we close up the coruscating scrolls Of our life's joy, seal up the jar of senseTo broach the starry flagon—splendid spilth? These creeping cravens shall be circumvented; They shall not belch their flatulence and filth On us, or tell the world that we repented.Come, as we strained it, let us break the tether In the last luxury—to die together!
IX
Let Death steal softly through the gate of sleep On tiptoe! win way the maiden life On velvet pinions to his azure steep; At ease, at peace, to woo her for a wife!His white horse waiting quietly without Let him push gently the delicious door And take us. We have lived. How should we doubt Or fear? we have lived well. For ever moreWe must be well. The cypress cannot daunt, Nor the acacia thrill; we are content To wander in the shadowy groves, to haunt The dark delight of our own element;Or—could we send a messenger—to tell Our brothers of the happiness of Hell!
X
Are not the poppy-fields one snowy flame? Come, let us wander hand in hand therein, Staining with joyout juice our lips of shame, Draining their bitter draught of sterile sin!Are not the eyes of sleep already dull, The lashes drooping over their desire? Are not the gods awaiting to annul With Lethe the last flicker of the fire?Ay, let us kiss, my darling; let us twitch For the last time the flesh against the flesh, Before the coming of the lovely witch That shall excite our sleepy souls afresh,Anointing us with subtle drugs and suave, Fit for the grave, for love beyond the grave!
XI
For the last time, my Lola! Still the name Fills me with music, echoing afar Faint, like the rapture of some ghostly flame Rejoicing in some lone secreted starBeyond the visible heaven. Come to me! Come closer! Is not this as close as death? Are we not one to all eternity Jewelled with joy? Mix me your subtle breathInto the words well-known and never worn, Into the kiss well-kissed and never tired, Into the love well-loved and not forlorn, The love beyond all that ever was desired?Ay! all the cloudy must of life is strained To clearer liquor that our souls attained.
XII
How the yahoos will rage and rave about Our sloughs! "Appalling double suicide! "'Orrible detiles". In the world without We never yet consented to abide.What should we care, within this cave of bliss, This ocean of content, wherein we dive And play like dolphins, for the horrid hiss Of blow-flies? Nay, they never were alive!O the sweet sleep that fastens on these brows! O the enchauntment of this dreamy god, My mystic sister, my mellific spouse, Tht shepherds us with his hermetic rodInto the flowery folds of love and sleep Where we have strayed—O never yet so deep!
XIII
Lola, dear Lola, how the stillness grows! How drosy is the world, that folds her wings Over us, folding like a sunset rose Her crimson raptures to the night of things!How all the voices and the visions fail As we pass through into the silent hall Beyond the vapours and beyond the veil, Beyond the Nothing as beyond the All!Ah! then, our voice must also fail in this; Our symbols are but shadows in the sun; Love's self springs from the shadow of the kiss; Our bliss! O, that was hardly half begun!We fight the Fate as we have fought the foemen. The poison takes us.—Χαίρετε νικῶμεν.
XIV
Farewell! O passionate world of changeful hours! Come, Lola, let us sleep! Elysian groves Await us and the beatific bowers Where Love is ours at last—as we were Love's.Come, with our mouths still kissing, with our limbs Still twined, relax the ecstasy! pass by To the abyss of night where no star swims! On to the end beyond the prophecy!Ah Lola mine! "No happy end is this"— I love you—ah! you love me—you love me! For we have passed beyond imagined bliss Into the kingdom of reality,Where we are crowned with flowers—yet closer creep! Sleep, Lola, now! I love you—sleep—ah, sleep!