No More Learning

Death I would have them till thou comest; yea,
The earthly stone whereof man's fortune here
Is made, strongly into deliberate death
I have built about my soul, to fend its life
From gazes of the world. I am too proud
To endure the world's desire of my beauty;
I know myself too marvellous in love
To be the joy of aught that thou hast made:
I am to be bride of thee, of the world's maker.
O God, the heart I have from thee, the heart
Uttering itself in an endless word of love,
Is sealed up in the stone of worldly night:
Set hitherward the flaming way of thy feet,
Break my night, and enter in unto me.
Come, wed my spirit; and like as the sea,
Into the shining spousal ecstasy
Of sun and wind, riseth in cloudy gleam,
So let the knowing of my flesh be clouds
Of fire, mounting up the height of my spirit,
Fire clouding with flame the marriage hour
Wherein my spirit keeps thy dreadful light
Away from Heaven in a bridal kiss,--
Fire of bodily sense in spiritual glee
Held, as fire of water in sunlit air.
Ah God, beautiful God, my soul is wild
With love of thee. Hitherward turn thy feet,
Turn their golden journeying towards this night,--
This night of cavernous earth; and now let shine
These walls of stone, against thy nearing love,
Like pure glass smitten by the power of the sun;
And let them be, in thy descending love,
Like glass in a furnace, falling molten down,
Back from thy burning feet streaming and flowing,
Leaving me naked to thy bright desire. --
Enjoy me, God, enjoy thy bride to-night.

_Vashti_.
Too well I know the first, the scarlet clad;
And she, that was in shining white and gold,
Was as the sound of bees and waters, at last
Heard by one long closed in the dins of madness.
But what was she, the black-robed, with the eyes
So fearfully alight, the last who spoke?

_Ishtar_.
Take none of these for perfect: they are moods
Purifying my women to become
My unexpressive, uttermost intent. --
As music binds into a strict delight
The manifold random sounds that shake the air,
Even so fashioned must I have the being
That fills with rushing power the boundless spirit:
Amidst it, musically firm, a joy
That is a fiery knowledge of itself,
Thereby self-continent, a globed fire.
And she who gave thee wonder, is the sign
Of those who firmest, brightest hold their being
Fastened and seized in one enjoyed desire.
Yet even they are but a making ready
For what I perfectly intend: in them
Joy of self-bound desire hath burnt itself
To extreme purity; I am free thereby
To work my meaning through them, my divinity.
Yea, such clean fire in man and such in woman
To mingle wonderfully, that the twain
Become a moment of one blazing flame
Infinitely upward towering, far beyond
The boundless fate of spirit in the world.
But in the way to this are maladies
And anguish; and as a perilous bridge
Over the uncontrolled demanding world,
Virginity, passionate self-possessing,
Must build itself supreme, unbreakable.
--I leave thee: as thou mayst, be comforted
By prophecy of what I mean in life.
Against thee is not Heaven, and thou must
Endure the hatred men will throw upon thee.

* * * * *

The shining place where Ishtar looked at her
Empty the Queen beheld; and into mist
The glory fainted, and the stars came through
Untroubled. Into the night the Queen went on.




PART II


IMPERFECTION




MARY

[A LEGEND OF THE FORTY-FIVE]


I

_A street in Carlisle leading to the Scottish Gate. Three
girls_, MARY, KATRINA, and JEAN.

_Katrina_.
What a year this has been!

_Mary_.
There's many a lass
Will blench to hear the date of it--Forty-five,--
Poor souls! Why will the men be fighting so,
Running away to find out death, as if
It were some tavern full of light and fiddling?
And when the doors are shut, what of the girls
Who gave themselves away, and still must live?
Are not men thoughtless?

_Katrina_.