Somehow silent in lines of flesh,
Finding your face too small,
Finding the earth too small,
Have they not informed you
That crowding life into seven words
Is an insincere and minor epigram?
And have they not reprimanded you
Because you fail to observe
Their vile and fervent spontaneity,
These howlers of earthly shrouds?
And have they neglected to drive
The bluster of their knuckles against your face
Because you rush from the leg and arm
Anecdotes of microscopical towns,
Bandying with a fantasy
Which they call thin and valueless?
“Life is a nightmare and something delicate,”
You repeat, and then, “O yes, they have done these things
To me because I take not seriously
The interval between two steps
Made by Death, who has grown a little tired.
When Death recovers his vigor
The intervals will become
Shorter and shorter until
No more men are alive.
But now they have their chance.
The wild, foul fight of life
Delights in refreshing phrases—
Swift-pouring tranquillities and ecstasies
Atoning for the groaning stampede
That desecrates the light
Between each dawn and twilight.
And those who stand apart
Use the edged art of their minds
To cut the struggling pack of bodies
Into naked, soiled distinctness.”
Lady, do not let them hear you.
You are too delicate—
Deliberately, nimbly, remotely, strongly
Delicate—and you will remind them
Too much of Death, who is also
The swiftly fantastic compression
Of every adjective and adverb
Marching to nouns that live
Beyond the intentions of men.
Men are not able, lady,
To strike his face, and in vengeance
They will smear your face
With the loose, long hatred of their words.
I will wash your face
With new metaphors and similes,
Telling carefully with my hands
That I love you not for your skin,
And every bird at twilight
Will be enviously astonished
At your face now insubstantial
Indeed, you have an irony
That ironically doubts
Whether its power is supreme,
And at such times you accept
The adequate distraction
Of cold and shifting fantasy.
This is your mood and mine,
And with it we open the window
To look upon the night.
The night, with distinguished coherence,
Is saying yes to the soul
And mending its velvet integrity
Torn by one forlorn
Animal that bounds
From towns and villages.
The night is Blake in combat
With an extraordinary wolf
Whose head can take the mobile
Protection of a smile;
Whose heart contains the ferocious
Lies of ice and fire;
Whose heart with stiff and sinuous
Promises swindles the lips and limbs of men;
Whose heart persuades its confusion
To welcome the martyred certainties
Of cruelty and kindness;
Whose brain is but a calmness
Where the falsehoods of earth
Can fashion masks of ideas.
Welcome the wolf.
Bring lyrics to fondle his hair.
Summon your troops of words
And exalt his gasping contortions.
Lady, it is my fear
That makes me give you these commands.
Men will force upon you
The garland of their spit
If you fail to glorify,
Or eagerly disrobe,
The overbearing motives of their flesh.
And every irony of yours
Will be despised unless
A hand of specious warmth
Directs the twist of your blades.
O lady, you are flashing detachment
Clad in exquisitely careful
Fantasy, and on your face
Pity and irony unite
To form the nimble light of contemplations.
Men will dread you as they fear
Death, the Ultimate Preciosity.
Stay with me within this chamber
And tell me that your heart
Is near to a spiral of pain
Curving perfectly
From the squirming of a world.
See, you have made me luminous
With this news, and my heart,
Fighting to be original,
Ends its struggle in yours.
Turning, we trace a crescent
Of conscious imagination
Upon the darkness of this room.
Night and window still remain.
Night, spiritual acrobat,
Evades with great undulations
The moans and exultations of men.
His madly elastic invitation
To the souls of men
Gathers up the imagination
Of one poet, starving in a room
Where rats and scandals ravish the light.
With