No More Learning

--Thou sayest true,
Women are as a sin in life: for that
The gods have made mankind in double sex.
Sin of desiring woman is to be
The knowledgeable light within man's soul,
Whereby he kills the darken'd ache of being.
But shall I leave him there? or shall I leave
Woman amid these hungers? Nay: I hold
The rages of these fires as a soft clay
Obedient to my handling; there shall be
Of man desiring, and of woman desired,
A single ecstasy divinely formed,
Two souls knowing themselves as one amazement.
All that thou hatest to arouse in man
Prepareth him for this; and thou thyself
Art by thy very hate prepared: wherefore
The gods forgive thee, seeing what comes of thee.
Behold now! of my godhead I will make
Thy senses burn with vision, storying
The spirit of woman growing from loved to love.

_The First Vision: Helen_.
Helen am I, a name astonishing
The world, a fame that rings against the sky,
Like an alarm of brass smitten to sound
The news of war against the stone of mountains.
I move in power through the minds of men,
And have no power to hold my power back.
Men's passions fawn upon my feet, as waves
That fiercely fawn after the going wind;
But not as the wind, shaking off the foam
Of the pursuing lust of the moaning waves,
And over the clamour of the evil seas'
Monstrous word running lightly, unhurt.
They fawn upon me, all the lusts of the world,
Bewildering my steps with straining close,
And breathe their horrible spittle against me.
Passions cry round me with the yelling cry
Of dogs chained and starving and smelling blood.
Yea, for through me the world becomes a den
Of insane greed.
In helpless beauty I stand
Alone in the midst of dreadful adoration;
And, round me thronged, the fawning, fawning lusts
Open their throats upon me and whine and lick
My feet with dripping tongues, or gaze to pant
Hot hunger in my face. For I am made
To set their hearts grim to possess my life,
And with an anger of love devour my beauty;
And yet to seal up in their mastered hearts
The rage, and bring them in croucht worship down
Before me, bent with impotent desire.
A quiet place the world was ere I came
A strife, a dream of fire, into its sleep;
And with their senses ended men's delights.
But I struck through their senses burning news
Of impossible endless things, and mixt
Wild lightning into their room of darkness. --Then
Agony, and a craving for delight
Escaping sensual grasp, began in men;
And the agony was poison in the health
Of sweet desire. --The joy of me men tried
To compass with strange frenzy and desire
Made new with cunning. But still at my feet
The lusts they tarr on me crouch down and fawn
And snarl to be so fearful of their prey.
I see men's faces grin with helpless lust
About me; crooked hands reach out to please
Their hot nerves with the flower of my skin;
I see the eyes imagining enjoyment,
The arms twitching to seize me, and the minds
Inflamed like the glee-kindled hearts of fiends.
And through the world the fawning, fawning lusts
Hound me with worship of a ravenous yearning:
And I am weary of maddening men with beauty.

_The Second Vision: Sappho_.
Into how fair a fortune hath man's life
Fallen out of the darkness! --This bright earth
Maketh my heart to falter; yea, my spirit
Bends and bows down in the delight of vision,
Caught by the force of beauty, swayed about
Like seaweed moved by the deep winds of water:
For it is all the news of love to me.
Through paths pine-fragrant, where the shaded ground
Is strewn with fruits of scarlet husk, I come,
As if through maidenhood's uncertainty,
Its darkness coloured with strange untried thoughts;
Hither I come, here to the flowery peak
Of this white cliff, high up in golden air,
Where glowing earth and sea and divine light
Are in mine eyes like ardour, and like love
Are in my soul: love's glowing gentleness,
The sunny grass of meadows and the trees,
Towers of dark green flame, and that white town
Where from the hearths, a fragrance of burnt wood,
Blue-purple smoke creeps like a stain of wine
Along the paved blue sea: yea, all this kindness
Lies amid salt immeasurable flowing,
The power of the sea, passion of love.
I, Sappho, have made love the mastery
Most sacred over man; but I have made it
A safety of things gloriously known,
To house his spirit from the darkness blowing
Out of the vast unknown: from me he hath
The wilful mind to make his fortune fair.
Yea, here I stand for the whole earth to see
How life, breathing its fortune like sweet air,
Mixing it with the kindled heart of man,
May utter it proud against the double truth
Of darkness fronting him and following him,
In a prevailing, burning, marvellous lie!
And it is love kindles the burning of it,
The quivering flame of spoken-forth desire,
Which man hath made his place within the world,--
Love, learnt of Sappho!