Pacchiarotto/Numpholeptos
NUMPHOLEPTOS.
Still you stand, still you listen, still you smile!Still melts your moonbeam through me, white awhile,Softening, sweetening, till sweet and softIncrease so round this heart of mine, that oftI could believe your moonbeam-smile has pastThe pallid limit and, transformed at last,Lies, sunlight and salvation—warms the soulIt sweetens, softens! Would you pass that goal,Gain love's birth at the limit's happier verge,And, where an iridescence lurks, but urgeThe hesitating pallor on to prime Of dawn!—true blood-streaked, sun-warmth, action-time,By heart-pulse ripened to a ruddy glowOf gold above my clay—I scarce should knowFrom gold's self, thus suffused! For gold means love.What means the sad slow silver smile aboveMy clay but pity, pardon?—at the best,But acquiescence that I take my rest,Contented to be clay, while in your heavenThe sun reserves love for the Spirit-SevenCompanioning God's throne they lamp before,—Leaves earth a mute waste only wandered o'erBy that pale soft sweet disempassioned moonWhich smiles me slow forgiveness! Such, the boonI beg? Nay, dear, submit to this—just thisSupreme endeavour! As my lips now kiss Your feet, my arms convulse your shrouding robe,My eyes, acquainted with the dust, dare probeYour eyes above for—what, if born, would blindMine with redundant bliss, as flash may findThe inert nerve, sting awake the palsied limb,Bid with life's ecstasy sense overbrimAnd suck back death in the resurging joy—Love, the love whole and sole without alloy!
Vainly! The promise withers! I employLips, arms, eyes, pray the prayer which finds the word,Make the appeal which must be felt, not heard,And none the more is changed your calm regard:Rather, its sweet and soft grow harsh and hard—Forbearance, then repulsion, then disdain. Avert the rest! I rise, see!—make, againOnce more, the old departure for some trackUntried yet through a world which brings me backEver thus fruitlessly to find your feet,To fix your eyes, to pray the soft and sweetWhich smile there—take from his new pilgrimageYour outcast, once your inmate, and assuageWith love—not placid pardon now—his thirstFor a mere drop from out the ocean erstHe drank at! Well, the quest shall be renewed.Fear nothing! Though I linger, unembuedWith any drop, my lips thus close. I go!So did I leave you, I have found you so,And doubtlessly, if fated to return,So shall my pleading persevere and earn Pardon—not love in that same smile, I learn,And lose the meaning of, to learn once more,Vainly!
What fairy track do I explore?What magic hall return to, like the gemCentuply-angled o'er a diadem?You dwell there, hearted; from your midmost homeRays forth—through that fantastic world I roamEver—from centre to circumference,Shaft upon coloured shaft: this crimsons thence,That purples out its precinct through the waste.Surely I had your sanction when I faced,Fared forth upon that untried yellow rayWhence I retrack my steps? They end to-day Where they began, before your feet, beneathYour eyes, your smile: the blade is shut in sheath,Fire quenched in flint; irradiation, lateTriumphant through the distance, finds its fate,Merged in your blank pure soul, alike the sourceAnd tomb of that prismatic glow: divorceAbsolute, all-conclusive! Forth I fared,Treading the lambent flamelet: little caredIf now its flickering took the topaz tint,If now my dull-caked path gave sulphury hintOf subterranean rage—no stay nor stintTo yellow, since you sanctioned that I bathe,Burnish me, soul and body, swim and swatheIn yellow licence. Here I reek suffusedWith crocus, saffron, orange, as I used With scarlet, purple, every dye o' the bowBorn of the storm-cloud. As before, you showScarce recognition, no approval, someMistrust, more wonder at a man becomeMonstrous in garb, nay—flesh disguised as well,Through his adventure. Whatsoe'er befell,I followed, wheresoe'er it wound, that veinYou authorised should leave your whiteness, stainEarth's sombre stretch beyond your midmost placeOf vantage,—trode that tinct whereof the traceOn garb and flesh repel you! Yes, I pleadYour own permission—your command, indeed,That who would worthily retain the loveMust share the knowledge shrined those eyes above,Go boldly on adventure, break through bounds O' the quintessential whiteness that surroundsYour feet, obtain experience of each tingeThat bickers forth to broaden out, impingePlainer his foot its pathway all distinctFrom every other. Ah, the wonder, linkedWith fear, as exploration manifestsWhat agency it was first tipped the crestsOf unnamed wildflower, soon protruding grewPortentous mid the sands, as when his hueBetrays him and the burrowing snake gleams through;Till, last . . but why parade more shame and pain?Are not the proofs upon me? Here againI pass into your presence, I receiveYour smile of pity, pardon, and I leave . . . No, not this last of times I leave you, mute, Submitted to my penance, so my footMay yet again adventure, tread, from sourceTo issue, one more ray of rays which courseEach other, at your bidding, from the sphereSilver and sweet, their birthplace, down that drearDark of the world,—you promise shall returnYour pilgrim jewelled as with drops o' the urnThe rainbow paints from, and no smatch at allOf ghastliness at edge of some cloud-pallHeaven cowers before, as earth awaits the fallO' the bolt and flash of doom. Who trusts your wordTries the adventure: and returns—absurdAs frightful—in that sulphur-steeped disguiseMocking the priestly cloth-of-gold, sole prizeThe arch-heretic was wont to bear away Until he reached the burning. No, I say:No fresh adventure! No more seeking loveAt end of toil, and finding, calm aboveMy passion, the old statuesque regard,The sad petrific smile!
O you—less hardAnd hateful than mistaken and obtuseUnreason of a she-intelligence!You very woman with the pert pretenceTo match the male achievement! Like enough!Ay, you were easy victors, did the roughStraightway efface itself to smooth, the gruffGrind down and grow a whisper,—did man's truthSubdue, for sake of chivalry and ruth, Its rapier-edge to suit the bulrush-spearWomanly falsehood fights with! O that earAll fact pricks rudely, that thrice-superfineFeminity of sense, with right divineTo waive all process, take result stain-freeFrom out the very muck wherein . . .
Ah me!The true slave's querulous outbreak! All the restBe resignation! Forth at your behestI fare. Who knows but this—the crimson-quest—May deepen to a sunrise, not decayTo that cold sad sweet smile?—which I obey.