These mighty daughters in their dances
Beckon each soul aghast from its crimson corpse
To mix in their glittering dances.
10 I heard the mighty daughters’ giant sighs
In sleepless passion for the sons of valour,
And envy of the days of flesh
Barring their love with mortal boughs across —
The mortal boughs — the mortal tree of life.
15 The old bark burnt with iron wars
They blow to a live flame
To char the young green days
And reach the occult soul; they have no softer lure
No softer lure than the savage ways of death.
20 We were satisfied of our lords the moon and the sun
To take our wage of sleep and bread and warmth —
These maidens came — these strong ever-living Amazons,
And in an easy might their wrists
Of night’s sway and noon’s sway the sceptres brake,
25 Clouding the wild — the soft lustres of our eyes.
Clouding the wild lustres, the clinging tender lights;
Driving the darkness into the flame of day,
With the Amazonian wind of them
Over our corroding faces
30 That must be broken — broken for evermore
So the soul can leap out
Into their huge embraces.
Though there are human faces
Best sculptures of Deity,
35 And sinews lusted after
By the Archangels tall,
Even these must leap to the love heat of these maidens
From the flame of terrene days
Leaving grey ashes to the wind — to the wind.
40 One (whose great lifted face,
Where wisdom’s strength and beauty’s strength
And the thewed strength of large beasts
Moved and merged, gloomed and lit)
Was speaking, surely, as the earth-men’s earth fell away;
45 Whose new hearing drunk the sound
Where pictures, lutes, and mountains mixed
With the loosed spirit of a thought.
Essenced to language, thus —
‘My sisters force their males
50 From the doomed earth, from the doomed glee
And hankering of hearts.
Frail hands gleam up through the human quagmire and lips of ash
Seem to wail, as in sad faded paintings
Far sunken and strange.
55 My sisters have their males
Clean of the dust of old days
That clings about those white hands
And yearns in those voices sad.
But these shall not see them,
60 Or think of them in any days or years,
They are my sisters’ lovers in other days and years.’
1917
SOLDIER: TWENTIETH CENTURY
I love you, great new Titan!
Am I not you?
Napoleon and Caesar
Out of you grew.
5 Out of unthinkable torture,
Eyes kissed by death,
Won back to the world again,
Lost and won in a breath,
Cruel men are made immortal,
10 Out of your pain born.
They have stolen the sun’s power
With their feet on your shoulders worn.
Let them shrink from your girth,
That has outgrown the pallid days,
15 When you slept like Circe’s swine,
Or a word in the brain’s ways.
1917
GIRL TO SOLDIER ON LEAVE
I love you — Titan lover,
My own storm-days’ Titan.
Greater than the son of Zeus,
I know who I would choose.
5 Titan — my splendid rebel —
The old Prometheus
Wanes like a ghost before your power —
His pangs were joys to yours.
Pallid days arid and wan
10 Tied your soul fast.
Babel cities’ smoky tops
Pressed upon your growth
Weary gyves. What were you,
But a word in the brain’s ways,
15 Or the sleep of Circe’s swine?
One gyve holds you yet.
It held you hiddenly on the Somme
Tied from my heart at home.
O must it loosen now? I wish
20 You were bound with the old old gyves.
Love! you love me — your eyes
Have looked through death at mine.
You have tempted a grave too much.
I let you — I repine.
1917
THE BURNING OF THE TEMPLE
Fierce wrath of Solomon
Where sleepest thou? O see
The fabric which thou won
Earth and ocean to give thee —
O look at the red skies.
Or hath the sun plunged down?
What is this molten gold —
These thundering fires blown
Through heaven — where the smoke rolled?
Again the great king dies.
His dreams go out in smoke,
His days he let not pass
And sculptured here are broke
Are charred as the burnt grass
Gone as his mouth’s last sighs.
1918
THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM BY THE BABYLONIAN HORDES
They left their Babylon bare
Of all its tall men.
Of all its proud horses;
They made for Lebanon.
5 And shadowy sowers went
Before their spears to sow
The fruit whose taste is ash
For Judah’s soul to know.
They who bowed to the Bull god
10 Whose wings roofed Babylon,
In endless hosts darkened
The bright-heavened Lebanon.
They washed their grime in pools
Where laughing girls forgot
15 The wiles they used for Solomon.
Sweet laughter! remembered not.
Sweet laughter charred in the flame
That clutched the cloud and earth
While Solomon’s towers crashed between
20 The gird of Babylon’s mirth.
1918
THROUGH THESE PALE COLD DAYS
Through these pale cold days
What dark faces burn
Out of three thousand years,
And their wild eyes yearn,
While underneath their brows
Like waifs their spirits grope
For the pools of Hebron again —
For Lebanon’s summer slope.
They leave these blond still days
In dust behind their tread
They see with living eyes
How long they have been dead.
1918
FRAGMENTS
CONTENTS
TO WILHELM II
POWER THAT IMPELS
AH, IF YOUR LIPS MIGHT STIR
YOU GAVE ME LEAVE TO LOVE YOU
MY DESIRES ARE AS THE SEA
ART
WHERE THE ROCK’S HEART IS HIDDEN FROM THE SEA
HE WAS MAD…
THE TREES SUFFER THE WIND
IN A CONCENTRATED THOUGHT A SUDDEN NOISE STARTLES
O SPEAR-GIRT FACE TOO FAR
LOVE, HIDE THY FACE — WHY IN THY LAND
HEART, IS THERE HOPE
THE BROODING STONES AND THE DISSOLVING HILLS
THE MONSTER WIND PROWLS IN THE WRITHEN TREES
POETS HAVE SNARED YOU IN SWEET WORD
HER GRAPE GREEN EYES HAVE STAINED IN WEIRD
PALE MOTHER NIGHT, SUCKLING THY BROOD OF STARS
IN ALL LOVE’S HEADY VALOUR AND BOLD PAINS
SENSUAL
BEAUTIFUL IS THE DAY
WOOD AND FOREST, DRINK
&nbs
p; I KNOW ALL MEN ARE WITHERED WITH YEARNING
I HAVE HEARD THE GODS
TO J. KRAMER
EVEN AS A LETTER BURNS AND CURLS
THE THRONGING GLORIES RINGING ROUND OUR BIRTH
NATURE, INDEED, THE PLOT YOU SPIN’S SO STALE
FROM YOUR SUNNY CLIME
NOW THINK HOW HIGH A MOUNTAIN IS
VIOLET IS THE MADDEST COLOR I KNOW
DROWSED IN BEAUTY
IN THE MOON’S DARK FANTASY
ALL PLEASURES FLY
AND LIKE THE ARTIST WHO CREATES
FOR ONE THRILLED INSTANT AM I YOU, O SKIES
THE SEARCH
BE THE HOPE OR THE FEAR
WILD UNDERTONES
I HAVE PRESSED MY TEETH IN THE HEART OF MAY
WHAT SONGS DO FILL THE PAUSES OF OUR DAY
IN DIMPLED DEPTHS OF SMILING INNOCENCE
WHAT MAY BE, WHAT HATH BEEN, AND WHAT IS NOW?
THE GRASSES TREMBLE AND QUIVER
SUMMER IN WINTER SIX THOUGHTS
L — AND M —
AMBER EYES WITH EVER SUCH LITTLE RED FIRES
FRAIL HOURS THAT LOVE TO DANCE
THERE ARE SWEET CHAINS THAT BIND
I LIVE FOR YOU
TOM IS SO RESERVED AND QUIET
OVER THE CHASM THEY ROLLED TOGETHER
BRITISH WOMEN! IN YOUR WOMBS YOU PLOTTED
EVENING
TO WILHELM II
It is cruel Emperor
The stars are too high.
For your reach Emperor
Far out they lie.
5 It is cruel for you Emperor
The sea has a stone,
England — they call it England,
That cannot shine in your crown.
Cruel the seas are deep,
10 Cruel for you Emperor
That all men are not in blind sleep,
And free hearts burn, Emperor.
It is cruel when a wronged world turns
And draws the claws of the beast
15 Cruel, cruel for you Emperor
Who would be most is least.
POWER THAT IMPELS
Power that impels,
Pulse of the void working to my vain grappling fingers,
Like a grave star drawing our gaze forlorn
Will kiss the sister star that is my soul,
So I a visible star, would penetrate the vast,
The unimaginable chasms and abysses
To reach the fountain star that hides the soul of thee.
The poet’s dead soul whose flung word lights the world,
The struck music that panic whirls the world —
The hills decay and pass to blossoms of fire;
In their slow dust God kneads his changing forms.
Sculptor of infinite dreams, we thank our dreamer.
AH, IF YOUR LIPS MIGHT STIR
Ah, if your lips might stir,
With one mood’s breath behind,
To the touch of a certain mood
As easily as it alters
To all swift moods but this!
But you are afraid to smile
And bewitch yourself to a place
Where though your moods might alter
One mood would come in vain.
YOU GAVE ME LEAVE TO LOVE YOU
You gave me leave to love you
In my own way I will.
Your leave you gave in your way.
In shy delight of loving,
The ways we two had met
Those ways we still must wander
There is one thing to forget.
We must forget ourselves, sweet,
Too much we feel the kiss,
Forget the bliss of loving,
And strive for God love’s bliss.
1914
MY DESIRES ARE AS THE SEA
My desires are as the sea
Whose white tongues fawn on the breast
Of sand and turn it again to sea,
Back to itself that prest.
My desires feed on me.
ART
O amber anger thrust
Out of a madman’s lust
For a baulked perfection,
Sad lithe towering —
5 Eternal dereliction.
Barbaric tenderness
Burns swart for sorrowless
Roses in storm advance,
Abysmal as they swing
10 Through a tumult of trance.
WHERE THE ROCK’S HEART IS HIDDEN FROM THE SEA
Where the rock’s heart is hidden from the sea
The unwearied sea whose white tongues fawn upon its breast
The rock’s heart hidden from the unwearying sea
Whose white tongues fawn upon its dumb (wet cheeks, cold breasts, cold cheeks)
It knows the hunger
O as the rock’s heart is her heart
And my thoughts fawn and my eyes cover her
O wonderful sea — it is little rock
Her eyes,(that are the heavens, deep heavens) whose depths reach not to me.
1914
HE WAS MAD…
He was mad,
Brain drenched by luxury of pulsing blood,
While to his heart’s throat his cold spirit pressed.
And ever rippled waves of golden curls,
Rose hue made of his thoughts a coloured fire.
1914
THE TREES SUFFER THE WIND
The trees suffer the wind
And the sunbeams leap in their mail.
The shadows slide from leaf to leaf
And sudden and brief
Resounds like an avalanche
The throats of these things frail.
1914
IN A CONCENTRATED THOUGHT A SUDDEN NOISE STARTLES
In a concentrated thought a sudden noise startles.
Sensual motions of nerves
Vibrate from hushed sky curves,
Helpless, obscene and cruel.
My fires must drain that jewel
Of all its virgin rays.
Crunched in one black amaze
My life inert goes out,
Dissolves voluptuously.
O SPEAR-GIRT FACE TOO FAR
O spear-girt face too far
Save for the sorcery that makes soft
Those points, or turns them inward on herself.
I cannot cleave through that inviolate tract
That virginal...
LOVE, HIDE THY FACE — WHY IN THY LAND
Love, hide thy face — why in thy land
This garden blooms we understand
A little — not at all — but men
Live not who are not drunk sometime
With power of its scents that climb
Their towers of soul, and melt and sting
The thoughted throng unburnishing,
The spiritual shining.
Rapid the flames and swords, the chains
Flash and are flung, we burn, we writhe,
The blood is emptied from our veins
And wine streams through, fiercely and blithe,
The royal flesh whose panting legions...
1914
HEART, IS THERE HOPE
Heart, is there hope — or is there ordeal still in thy stars’ horoscope?
Come, the keen years, the fierce years, laughing and cruel,
Heap on your trouble.
1914
THE BROODING STONES AND THE DISSOLVING HILLS
The brooding stones and the dissolving hills,
The summer’s leafy luxury,
The winter shrewd,
And all thy changing robes, thy myriad forms.
THE MONSTER WIND PROWLS IN THE WRITHEN TREES
The monster wind prowls in the writhen trees,
The wind dives in the writhen trees,
They strain in angered leash their green,
They are only strong in ease.
Soft, forward, inarticulate,
Warm, wayward,
drooping, or aburst,
Rushing, it tires, slacks to abate.
The wind wakes in the writhen trees
1914
POETS HAVE SNARED YOU IN SWEET WORD
Poets have snared you in sweet word,
Such cage, immortal singing bird
Each soul finds you while tread your eyes
Its intricate infinities.
Bounding infinity in a mood
Whose habit is your roseate hood,
To ecstasy — to ecstasy
More sweet than Paradise can be,
Where every thought and pulse and vein
Melts into joy — till sense is fain
To cease lest...
HER GRAPE GREEN EYES HAVE STAINED IN WEIRD
Her grape green eyes have stained in weird
Lustrous fantasies the urn
Of one mood and ever they burn,
And the heart stands there to learn.
They are old carvings so long heard
In oldest struggle of man’s brain
One of restlessness to gain,
Death dim — fair hair in vain.
PALE MOTHER NIGHT, SUCKLING THY BROOD OF STARS
Pale mother night, suckling thy brood of stars,
My fire, too, yearns for thy giant love,
But they are calm, and mine is frenzy fire.
IN ALL LOVE’S HEADY VALOUR AND BOLD PAINS
In all Love’s heady valour and bold pains
Is the wide storehouse for your female gains
SENSUAL
Or where absence, silence is,
Of fleshly strings whose strains are Paradise
And pavin ecstasies
For the untravelled ardours leashed in eyes.
Youth’s fearless wings are spread.
O Cynic life! fine mirrors are your walls.
O voice and lip unwed,
Hands beckon but my own wild shadow calls.
Is not love loveliness,
Truth beauty and all natural harmony
Unstriving happiness,
The mystic centre of all unity?
Life mirrors love and truth
Even as our love and truth within be deep.
His own self dazzles youth
Complete Works of Isaac Rosenberg Page 11