V

WOMAN AND VISION

Vainly the Vision of Life entreats those eyes
Where stars of glamour mock at revelations.
But singular fiery moments do surprise
With dreadful or delicious divinations
The whorls of our blue Labyrinth: the sweet
Blind sense of touch tells like an undersong
Marvellous matters. What though snared feet,
And wounded hands, and ravelled coils of wrong,
Plead that the solemn Vision might make whole
Our imperfection?--Fevered second-sight,
Audacious wisdom of the blinded soul,
Dim delicate auroras of delight
That thrill the Dark from startled finger-tips,
Are ye less precious an Apocalypse?

XXXVI

ART AND WOMEN

The Triumph of Art compels few womenkind;
And these are yoked like slaves to Eros' car,--
No victors they! Yet ours the Dream behind,
Who are nearer to the gods than poets are.
For with the silver moons we wax and wane,
And with the roses love most woundingly,
And, wrought from flower to fruit with dim rich pain,
The Orchard of the Pomegranates are we.
For with Demeter still we seek the Spring,
With Dionysos tread the sacred Vine,
Our broken bodies still imagining
The mournful Mystery of the Bread and Wine.--
And Art, that fierce confessor of the flowers,
Desires the secret spice of those veiled hours.

XXXVII

DESTINY

The great religions of the Rose and Grape
Have bound us in to their sad Paradise:
We dream in crucial symbols, nor escape
The cypress-garden where the slain god lies.
Daughters of lamentation round the Cross
Where Beauty suffers garlanded with thorn,
Remembrancers through all the Night of Loss,
We bear the spikenard of the Easter Morn.
The yearning Springs, the brooding Autumns seethe
Like philtres in our veins. O dark Election,
Are then the sacrificial doors we wreathe
With lilies fiery gates of Resurrexion?
And does the passion of our spices feed
Love's bright Arabian miracle indeed?

XXXVIII

CONFLICT

Why should a woman find her dream of love
Irised by the strange ecstasy of Art?
Is not Eros a terrible lord enough
That she must bear both Hunters of the heart,
The Golden Archer and the Scarlet too?
Then bitter anomalies annul her choir
Of puissant and subtle instincts, rended through
By gorgeous dualisms of vain-desire.
For Love outrages Art's clear disciplines,
And Art lures Love to guilt of cryptic treason: