[BNP/E3, 49A4 – 42]
15-7-1915.
The sky is a great turquoise shining[1] glee,
All the earth is gathered up in the blue sea
Ev'n the green fields tend thereto in their joy,
The whole day playeth like a happy boy
Among the dales the hours build with their glee.
How happy, had I no cares, would I be!
But there is too much sorrow in mere seeing
The feminine disease of consciousness
Eats like a worm into the source of being.
The very thought I live gives me distress.
My heart is felt by me like some heavy place.
----------
O heavy day that comes with so much glee
Out of the East.
It turquoises the silence of the sea
And makes a feast
Of blueness of the waves that shiver and flee.
O heavy day because my love hath gone
And taken away
His white arms and his lips like poppies grown
Athwart that day
When I first saw him and felt my heart moan.
My hands are stretched towards his coming, and
He cometh not.
He seems a woman and his gesturing hand
Too oft bath wrought
Dreams of strange vice with him through my heart's sand.
He is scarce more than a child. His body is white,
His arms lie bare
Across my neck and cling like a delight
Of which my share
Is painful like a far sail in the night.
Oh, love, return! All this is dreams of thee
Return and wake
My trembling frame to that vile misery
That love doth take
For his body when the lovers are such as we.
Golden‑haired boy that cannot love me so
As I love him,
Look, life is short, our lips fade… Ay, I know
I am ugly and dim
But love me a little or seem... Love me and go
Yet love ere going, and then let me dream
On what was real while life fades and goes slow…
[42v]
Le Mignon.
Let them speak ill of me. I do not care.
Why shouldst thou care that fairer art than I?
My lips so oft have rested on thy hair,
So oft on thy lips, and so oft
On thy white arms that yet pretend to lie
On my dreams cushions like a vague thing soft…
Let them speak. Life is sweet if thy lips mean
Life. Love is sweet if thou art love.
The scorners cannot know what kisses screen
Our throbbing heart from heart nor prove
That full possession our mad love can scene
With perverse actions like an empire's end
That sinks among the galleys and doth blend
Its sunset with the landscape's emerald green.
Let them speak. Put thy hand within my hand
And let us love as maid and boy are said
To love. But we are none and love is red
On our hot souls that thrill and understand.
Oh, to thy bed!
Oh to thy bed, fairer than maidens' couches
And curtained over with strange care for strangeness,
Let's to thy bed and kiss naked while touches
Selected from our hotter dreams transcend
Lust with thought lust acted upon our frames.
The magic misery of our wedded names
Shall light the future with impassioned strangeness.
Antinous! – Ganymede!
I shall so Hadrian and Jupiter to thee
Along our love shall flower many we recede
To be delightful to our eyes that see
Only each other, yet others the mead enter
Our corner[2] of seeing against our willing it
And all that is between us is the center
Of our love that our bodies {…} other felt.
Crown this with flowers and crown further through the morn…
Let a light turn make thy flit tempest more…
Between roses red ardour
By golden hair and on thy body poor
Strange contest smelling of stupendous Easts
When vices are as strange as the strange beauty
Tiger and |worst| snake and elephant
But bitten us |monstrous| through deep forests roam…
O my love, cense
Let thy suspected ceasing be a chant
Of joy beginning in my nerves that thrill
Can quick and with thy faith for smile whole fill
My maddened heart {…}
[1] shining /bathed in\
[2] corner /squint\
