Ирландский поэтарх

FATHER AND CHILD

SHE hears me strike the board and say

That she is under ban

Of all good men and women,

Being mentioned with a man

That has the worst of all bad names;

And thereupon replies

That his hair is beautiful,

Cold as the March wind his eyes.

II. BEFORE THE WORLD WAS MADE

IF I make the lashes dark

And the eyes more bright

And the lips more scarlet,

Or ask if all be right

From mirror after mirror,

No vanity’s displayed:

I’m looking for the face I had

Before the world was made.

What if I look upon a man

As though on my beloved,

And my blood be cold the while

And my heart unmoved?

Why should he think me cruel

Or that he is betrayed?

I’d have him love the thing that was

Before the world was made.

III. A FIRST CONFESSION

I ADMIT the briar

Entangled in my hair

Did not injure me;

My blenching and trembling,

Nothing but dissembling,

Nothing but coquetry.

I long for truth, and yet

I cannot stay from that

My better self disowns,

For a man’s attention

Brings such satisfaction

To the craving in my bones.

Brightness that I pull back

From the Zodiac,

Why those questioning eyes

That are fixed upon me?

What can they do but shun me

If empty night replies?

IV. HER TRIUMPH

I DID the dragon’s will until you came

Because I had fancied love a casual

Improvisation, or a settled game

That followed if I let the kerchief fall:

Those deeds were best that gave the minute wings

And heavenly music if they gave it wit;

And then you stood among the dragon-rings.

I mocked, being crazy, but you mastered it

And broke the chain and set my ankles free,

Saint George or else a pagan Perseus;

And now we stare astonished at the sea,

And a miraculous strange bird shrieks at us.

V. CONSOLATION

O BUT there is wisdom

In what the sages said;

But stretch that body for a while

And lay down that head

Till I have told the sages

Where man is comforted.

How could passion run so deep

Had I never thought

That the crime of being born

Blackens all our lot?

But where the crime’s committed

The crime can be forgot.

VI. CHOSEN

THE lot of love is chosen. I learnt that much

Struggling for an image on the track

Of the whirling Zodiac.