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• Classic-Fiction

Made by the bees from lime trees.

O pale lemon-coloured moon,

You were worshipped five thousand years ago,

The temples they built you are dust

Or buried under the earth,

But you are still the moon

Riding high and proud in the sky …

I am sick of words

Of everlasting meaningless words.

I love you—I love you—that parrot cry.

Cannot flesh take flesh in silence?

But no—you will not have it so.

You were made for incense,

For burning words,

Words—words—words—going on through the night …

While I worship the pulse in your throat

And the curve of your breast …

In twenty years your face will be haggard,

Your eyes will be cold,

Your sagging breasts will not stir my desire—

But the moon will be still the moon …

And I?

What am I?

I am a man who loves you

Desperately, blindly.

I am a man in the street

Seeing the moon …

I am an old man in a club

Ringing the bell and saying “Old brandy.”

I am curled up in my mother’s womb

Knowing nothing of all this extraordinary business

Called Life,

Unhurt by the torture of beauty,

Unconscious as yet that beauty is …

I am all these things and always have been

And ever shall be.

O moon, ride high in the sky tonight,

Ride high,

Ride high …

What Is Love?

LOVE is a white flame—And a smouldering smoky fire

It is a green tree—And a grey cathedral spire

Love is an ecstasy—pure—It stirs in mud and slime

It is youth and delight—It is cold and sublime

There is none shall say

What Love is—or is not,

And which of us shall say:

“Dwell!” or “Depart!”

Love will not stay

And will not leave the heart

At our desire or plea.

But oh! for me

This would I pray

That Love might be a tree

Rooted in time—for all eternity.

To M.E.L.M. in Absence

NOW is the winter past, but for my part

Still winter stays until we meet again.

Dear love, I have your promise and your heart

But lacking touch and sight, spring buds bring pain.

Friendship is ours, and still in absence grows.

No dearer friend I own, so close, so kind.

Knowledge is yours, from you to me it flows

And I have loved your wise and gentle mind.

Beauty we share, a white magnolia tree

Rooted in England brings you to my side

And Roman columns rising from the sea

Must surely bring remembrance with the tide.

So in my winter, love, I dream of spring

Enclosed within the circle of your ring …

Remembrance

IF I should leave you in the days to come—

God grant that may not be—

But yet if so,

Your love for me must fade I know.

You will remember—and you will forget.

But oh! imperishable—strong

My love for you shall burn and glow

Deep in your heart—your whole life long,

Unknown, unseen, but living still in bliss

So you shall bear me with you all the days.

Forget then what you will.

I died—but not my love for you,

That lives for aye—though dumb,

Remember this

If I should leave you in the days to come.

A Choice

I AM tired of the past that clings around my feet,

I am tired of the past that will not let life be sweet,

I would cut it away with a knife and say

Let me be myself—reborn—today.

But I am afraid of the past—that it will creep back to my feet

And look in my face and say, “You laugh and eat

But I am here with you yet …

You would not remember—but I will not let you forget …”

What is or is not courage? Who shall say?

Shall I be brave or base if I cut the past away?

Sometimes I have dreamed that you have stood and said:

“I too have sometimes longed to be freed from the dead

Burden of our remembrance, free from your sorrow.”

Let there be no yesterday and no tomorrow,

Let there be for us only today,

Ride it—ride it through Time and away.

My Flower Garden

THERE is no knowing

What time shall bring,