TO
AN IRIS
|
|
THOU
art a golden iris
Under a purple wall,
Whereon the burning sunlight
And greening shadows fall.
What Summer night’s enchantment
|
5 |
Took
up the garden mould,
And with the falling star-dust
Refined it to such gold?
What wonder of white magic
Bidding thy soul aspire,
|
10 |
Filled
that luxurious body
With languor and with fire?
Wert thou not once a beauty
In Persia or Japan,
For whom, by toiling seaway
|
15 |
| Or dusty
caravan,
Of old some lordly lover
Brought countless treasure home
Of gems and silk and attar,
To pleasure thee therefrom?
|
20 |
Pale amber from the Baltic,
Soft rugs of Indian ply,
Stuffs from the looms of Bagdad
Stained with the Tyrian dye.
Were thy hands bright with henna,
|
25 |
Thy
lashes black with kohl,
Thy voice like silver water
Out of an earthen bowl?
Or was thy only tent-cloth
The blue Astartean night,
|
30 |
Thy
soul to beauty given,
Thy body to delight?
Wert thou not well desired,
And was not life a boon,
When Tanis held in Sidon
|
35 |
| Her
Mysteries of the Moon?
There in her groves of ilex
The nightingales made ring
With the mad lyric chorus
Of youth and love and Spring,
|
40 |
Were thou not glad to worship
With some blond Paphian boy,
Illumined by new knowledge
And intimate with joy?
And did not the Allmother
|
45 |
Smile
in the hushed dim light,
Hearing thy stifled laughter
Disturb her holy rite?
Ah, well thou must have served her
In wise and gracious ways,
|
50 |
With
more than vestal fervour,
A loved one all thy days!
And dost thou, then, revisit
Our borders at her will,
Child of the sultry rapture,
|
55 |
| Waif
of the Orient still?
Because thy love was fearless
And fond and strong and free,
Art thou not her last witness
To our apostasy?
|
60 |
Just at the height of summer,
The joy-days of the year,
She bids, for our reproval,
Thy radiance appear.
Oh, Iris, let thy spirit
|
65 |
Enkindle
our gross clay,
Bring back the lost earth-passion
For beauty to our day!
To-night, when down the marshes
The lilac half-lights fade,
|
70 |
And
on the rosy shore-line
No earthly spell is laid,
I would be thy new lover,
With the dark life renewed
By our great mother Tanis
|
75 |
| And
thy solicitude.
Feel slowly change this vesture
Of mortal flesh and bone,
Transformed by her soft witch-work
To one more like thine own.
|
80 |
Become but as the rain-wind
(Who am but dust indeed),
To slake thy velvet ardour
And soothe thy darling need.
To dream and waken with thee
|
85 |
Under
the night’s blue sail,
As the wild odours freshen,
Till the white stars grow pale. |
|
|
