sources, the darkest outgoings,
when it has struck home to her, like a death, "this
is _him!_"
she has no part in it, no part whatever,
it is the terrible _other_,
when she knows the fearful _other flesh_, ah, dark-
ness unfathomable and fearful, contiguous and
concrete,
when she is slain against me, and lies in a heap
like one outside the house,
when she passes away as I have passed away
being pressed up against the _other_,
then I shall be glad, I shall not be confused with
her,
I shall be cleared, distinct, single as if burnished
in silver,
having no adherence, no adhesion anywhere,
one clear, burnished, isolated being, unique,
and she also, pure, isolated, complete,
two of us, unutterably distinguished, and in
unutterable conjunction.
Then we shall be free, freer than angels, ah,
perfect.
VIII
AFTER that, there will only remain that all men
detach themselves and become unique,
that we are all detached, moving in freedom more
than the angels,
conditioned only by our own pure single being,
having no laws but the laws of our own being.
Every human being will then be like a flower,
untrammelled.
Every movement will be direct.
Only to be will be such delight, we cover our faces
when we think of it
lest our faces betray us to some untimely fiend.
Every man himself, and therefore, a surpassing
singleness of mankind.
The blazing tiger will spring upon the deer, un-
dimmed,
the hen will nestle over her chickens,
we shall love, we shall hate,
but it will be like music, sheer utterance,
issuing straight out of the unknown,
the lightning and the rainbow appearing in us
unbidden, unchecked,
like ambassadors.
We shall not look before and after.
We shall _be_, _now_.
We shall know in full.
We, the mystic NOW.
ZENNOR
_AUTUMN RAIN_
THE plane leaves
fall black and wet
on the lawn;
The cloud sheaves
in heaven's fields set
droop and are drawn
in falling seeds of rain;
the seed of heaven
on my face
falling--I hear again
like echoes even
that softly pace
Heaven's muffled floor,
the winds that tread
out all the grain
of tears, the store
harvested
in the sheaves of pain
caught up aloft:
the sheaves of dead
men that are slain
now winnowed soft
on the floor of heaven;
manna invisible
of all the pain
here to us given;
finely divisible
falling as rain.
_FROST FLOWERS_
IT is not long since, here among all these folk
in London, I should have held myself
of no account whatever,
but should have stood aside and made them way
thinking that they, perhaps,
had more right than I--for who was I?
Now I see them just the same, and watch them.
But of what account do I hold them?
Especially the young women. I look at them
as they dart and flash
before the shops, like wagtails on the edge of a
pool.
If I pass them close, or any man,
like sharp, slim wagtails they flash a little aside
pretending to avoid us; yet all the time
calculating.
They think that we adore them--alas, would it
were true!
Probably they think all men adore them,
howsoever they pass by.
What is it, that, from their faces fresh as spring,
such fair, fresh, alert, first-flower faces,
like lavender crocuses, snowdrops, like Roman
hyacinths,
scyllas and yellow-haired hellebore, jonquils, dim
anemones,
even the sulphur auriculas,
flowers that come first from the darkness, and feel
cold to the touch,
flowers scentless or pungent, ammoniacal almost;
what is it, that, from the faces of the fair young
women
comes like a pungent scent, a vibration beneath
that startles me, alarms me, stirs up a repulsion?
They are the issue of acrid winter, these first-
flower young women;
their scent is lacerating and repellant,
it smells of burning snow, of hot-ache,
of earth, winter-pressed, strangled in corruption;
it is the scent of the fiery-cold dregs of corruption,
when destruction soaks through the mortified,
decomposing earth,
and the last fires of dissolution burn in the bosom
of the ground.
They are the flowers of ice-vivid mortification,
thaw-cold, ice-corrupt blossoms,
with a loveliness I loathe;
for what kind of ice-rotten, hot-aching heart
must they need to root in!
_CRAVING FOR SPRING_
I WISH it were spring in the world.
Let it be spring!
Come, bubbling, surging tide of sap!
Come, rush of creation!
Come, life! surge through this mass of mortifica-
tion!
Come, sweep away these exquisite, ghastly first-
flowers,
which are rather last-flowers!
Come, thaw down their cool portentousness,
dissolve them:
snowdrops, straight, death-veined exhalations of
white and purple crocuses,
flowers of the penumbra, issue of corruption,
nourished in mortification,
jets of exquisite finality;
Come, spring, make havoc of them!
I trample on the snowdrops, it gives me pleasure
to tread down the jonquils,
to destroy the chill Lent lilies;
for I am sick of them, their faint-bloodedness,
slow-blooded, icy-fleshed, portentous.
I want the fine, kindling wine-sap of spring,
gold, and of inconceivably fine, quintessential
brightness,
rare almost as beams, yet overwhelmingly potent,
strong like the greatest force of world-balancing.
This is the same that picks up the harvest of wheat
and rocks it, tons of grain, on the ripening wind;
the same that dangles the globe-shaped pleiads of
fruit
temptingly in mid-air, between a playful thumb and
finger;
oh, and suddenly, from out of nowhere, whirls
the pear-bloom,
upon us, and apple- and almond- and apricot-
and quince-blossom,
storms and cumulus clouds of all imaginable
blossom
about our bewildered faces,
though we do not worship.
I wish it were spring
cunningly blowing on the fallen
sparks, odds and
ends of the old, scattered fire,
and kindling shapely little conflagrations
curious long-legged foals, and wide-eared calves,
and naked sparrow-bubs.
I wish that spring
would start the thundering traffic of feet
new feet on the earth, beating with impatience.
I wish it were spring, thundering
delicate, tender spring.
I wish these brittle, frost-lovely flowers of pas-
sionate, mysterious corruption
were not yet to come still more from the still-
flickering discontent.
Oh, in the spring, the bluebell bows him down for
very exuberance,
exulting with secret warm excess,
bowed down with his inner magnificence!
Oh, yes, the gush of spring is strong enough
to toss the globe of earth like a ball on a water-jet
dancing sportfully;
as you see a tiny celluloid ball tossing on a squint
of water
for men to shoot at, penny-a-time, in a booth at a
fair.
The gush of spring is strong enough
to play with the globe of earth like a ball on a
fountain;
At the same time it opens the tiny hands of the
hazel
with such infinite patience.
The power of the rising, golden, all-creative sap
could take the earth
and heave it off among the stars, into the in-
visible;
the same sets the throstle at sunset on a bough
singing against the blackbird;
comes out in the hesitating tremor of the primrose,
and betrays its candour in the round white straw-
berry flower,
is dignified in the foxglove, like a Red-Indian
brave.
Ah come, come quickly, spring!
Come and lift us towards our culmination, we
myriads;
we who have never flowered, like patient cactuses.
Come and lift us to our end, to blossom, bring us
to our summer
we who are winter-weary in the winter of the world.
Come making the chaffinch nests hollow and cosy,
come and soften the willow buds till they are
puffed and furred,
then blow them over with gold.
Come and cajole the gawky colt's-foot flowers.
Come quickly, and vindicate us
against too much death.
Come quickly, and stir the rotten globe of the
world from within,
burst it with germination, with world anew.
Come now, to us, your adherents, who cannot
flower from the ice.
All the world gleams with the lilies of Death the
Unconquerable,
but come, give us our turn.
Enough of the virgins and lilies, of passionate,
suffocating perfume of corruption,
no more narcissus perfume, lily harlots, the blades
of sensation
piercing the flesh to blossom of death.
Have done, have done with this shuddering,
delicious business
of thrilling ruin in the flesh, of pungent passion,
of rare, death-edged ecstasy.
Give us our turn, give us a chance, let our hour
strike,
O soon, soon!
Let the darkness turn violet with rich dawn.
Let the darkness be warmed, warmed through to a
ruddy violet,
incipient purpling towards summer in the world
of the heart of man.
Are the violets already here!
Show me! I tremble so much to hear it, that even
now
on the threshold of spring, I fear I shall die.
Show me the violets that are out.
Oh, if it be true, and the living darkness of the
blood of man is purpling with violets,
if the violets are coming out from under the rack
of men, winter-rotten and fallen
we shall have spring.
Pray not to die on this Pisgah blossoming with
violets.
Pray to live through.
If you catch a whiff of violets from the darkness of
the shadow of man
it will be spring in the world,
it will be spring in the world of the living;
wonderment organising itself, heralding itself with
the violets,
stirring of new seasons.
Ah, do not let me die on the brink of such
anticipation!
Worse, let me not deceive myself.
ZENNOR
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