IN A RANGE OF CLAYS

           

On uncertain, material soil I have carried back My ancient-foot possessions, And up on the ocean of heaven's waving sadness They sparkle till they touch the ground! - Can I feel no more, can I not with hold nor hold Allow my sinking pessimism? Green-scaled chameleon-leaves drenched with knocking rain, The lonely trees stood like upturned clothes-hangers!

Thou hast offered me honeyed love with insatiable greed, But thy kisses and thy will's bombardment soon make me half cold again, And I'll flee back to my hiding cower! - I have seen the ice-face of thy last face as the self-torment of the last, as a thorn in the heart of the tormenting and tormenting! In the secret stream of blood-tunnels the poison of regret has settled, but still the crimson chamber and its appendages beat with raging vengeance!

In the river of tearful sorrows, in the forest of bushes, I would visit thee, if I could: but I am bound and chained by the conscious responsibility that I owe thee a treasure-sacrifice, and cannot always keep thee by my side. I have trodden to my bosom in the realms of murderously grating yet poisonous ivy, and in my consciousness - though ever teased, pricked and strained by the agonies of my Sisyphean pain - thou hast walked all the while in the unknown regions of my wandering brain!

The glory of creation was the day we met, And the suddenness of thy departure: another version of my death!