He woke up with a sick taste in his mouth And lay there heavily, while dancing motes Whirled through his brain in endless, rippling streams, And a grey mist weighed down upon his eyes So that they could not open fully.Yet After some time his blurred mind stumbled back To its last ragged memory -- a room; Air foul with wine; a shouting, reeling crowd Of friends who dragged him, dazed and blind with drink Out to the street; a crazy rout of cabs; The steady mutter of his neighbor's voice, Mumbling out dull obscenity by rote; And then...well, they had brought him home it seemed, Since he awoke in bed -- oh, damn the business! He had not wanted it -- the silly jokes, "One last, great night of freedom ere you're married!" "You'll get no fun then!" "H-ssh, don't tell that story! He'll have a wife soon!" -- God! the sitting down To drink till you were sodden!...Like great light She came into his thoughts.That was the worst.To wallow in the mud like this because His friends were fools....He was not fit to touch, To see, oh far, far off, that silver place Where God stood manifest to man in her....Fouling himself....One thing he brought to her, At least.He had been clean; had taken it A kind of point of honor from the first...Others might do it...but he didn't care For those things....Suddenly his vision cleared.And something seemed to grow within his mind....Something was wrong -- the color of the wall -- The queer shape of the bedposts -- everything Was changed, somehow...his room.Was this his room?
...He turned his head -- and saw beside him there The sagging body's slope, the paint-smeared face, And the loose, open mouth, lax and awry, The breasts, the bleached and brittle hair...these things....As if all Hell were crushed to one bright line Of lightning for a moment.Then he sank, Prone beneath an intolerable weight.And bitter loathing crept up all his limbs.
The Quality of Courage
Black trees against an orange sky, Trees that the wind shook terribly, Like a harsh spume along the road, Quavering up like withered arms, Writhing like streams, like twisted charms Of hot lead flung in snow.Below The iron ice stung like a goad, Slashing the torn shoes from my feet, And all the air was bitter sleet.
And all the land was cramped with snow, Steel-strong and fierce and glimmering wan, Like pale plains of obsidian.-- And yet I strove -- and I was fire And ice -- and fire and ice were one In one vast hunger of desire.A dim desire, of pleasant places, And lush fields in the summer sun, And logs aflame, and walls, and faces, -- And wine, and old ambrosial talk, A golden ball in fountains dancing, And unforgotten hands.(Ah, God, I trod them down where I have trod, And they remain, and they remain, Etched in unutterable pain, Loved lips and faces now apart, That once were closer than my heart -- In agony, in agony, And horribly a part of me....For Lethe is for no man set, And in Hell may no man forget.)And there were flowers, and jugs, bright-glancing, And old Italian swords -- and looks, A moment's glance of fire, of fire, Spiring, leaping, flaming higher, Into the intense, the cloudless blue, Until two souls were one, and flame, And very flesh, and yet the same! As if all springs were crushed anew Into one globed drop of dew! But for the most I thought of heat, Desiring greatly....Hot white sand The lazy body lies at rest in, Or sun-dried, scented grass to nest in, And fires, innumerable fires, Great fagots hurling golden gyres Of sparks far up, and the red heart In sea-coals, crashing as they part To tiny flares, and kindling snapping, Bunched sticks that burst their string and wrapping And fall like jackstraws; green and blue The evil flames of driftwood too, And heavy, sullen lumps of coke With still, fierce heat and ugly smoke.......And then the vision of his face, And theirs, all theirs, came like a sword, Thrice, to the heart -- and as I fell I thought I saw a light before.
