The Flower Of Flame

I

AS round the cliff I came alone

The whole bay bared its blaze to me;

Loud sang the wind, the wild sun shone

The tumbled clouds fled scattering on,

Light shattered on wave and winking stone,

And in the glassy midst stood one

Brighter than sun or cloud or sea.

She with flame-vehement hair untied,

Virginal in her fluttering dress,

Watched, deafened and all dazzle-eyed,

Each opulent breaker's crash and glide

And now flung arms up high and wide

As if, possessing all, she cried

Her beauty, youth and happiness.

Loud rang the waves and higher, higher

The surge in chains of light was flung,

The wind as in a wild desire

Licked round her form—she seemed a spire

Of sunny drift ! a fount of fire!

The hymn of some triumphant lyre

Which sounded when the world was young!

Purified by the scalding glare,

Swept clear by the salty sea-wind's flow,

My eyes knew you for what you are—

The daemon thing for which we dare,

Which breaks us, which we bid not spare.

The life, the light, the heavenly snare,

The turretted city's overthrow,

Helen, I knew you standing there!

II

The long, low wavelets of summer

Glide in and glitter along the sand;

The fitful breezes of summer

Blow fragrantly from the land.

Side by side we lie silent

Between sunned cliffs and blown seas:

Our eyes more bright than sea ripples,

Our breaths more light than the breeze.

When a gust meets a wave that advances

The wave leaps, flames, falls with a hiss

So lightly, so brightly each heart leaps

When our dumb lips touch in a kiss.

III

Foamless the gradual waters well

From the sheer deep, where darkness lies,

Till to the shoulder rock they swell

With a slow cumulance of sighs.

O, waters gather up your strength

From the blind caves of your unrest,

Loose your load utterly at length

Over the moonlight-marbled breast.

There sleep, diffused, the long dim hours,

Nor let your love-locks be withdrawn

Till round the world-horizon glowers

The wrath and chaos of the dawn.

IV

She picked a whorled shell from the beach

And laid it close beside her ear;

Then held it, frightened, at full reach

Toward my face that I might hear.

And while she leaned and while I heard

Our dumb eyes dared not meet for shame,

Our hearts within us sickly stirred,

Our limbs ran wax before the flame.

For in the despairing voice and meek

An echo to our hearts we found

Who through love-striving vainly seek

To coop the infinite in bound.

V

All is estranged to-day.

Chastened and meek,

Side by side taking our way,

With what anguish we seek

To dare each to face the other or even to speak!

The sun like an opal drifts

Through a vapourous shine

Or overwhelms itself in dark rifts,

On the sea's far line

Sheer light falls in a single sword like a sign.

The sea, striving in its bed

Like a corpse that awakes,

Slowly heaves up its lustreless head,

Crowned with weeds and snakes,

To strike at the shore bareing fangs as it breaks.

Something threatening earth

Aims at our love;—

Gone is our ignorant mirth,

Love like speech of the dove;

The Sword and the Snake have seen and proclaim now

"Enough!"

VI

The narrow pathway winds its course

Through dwarfish oaks and junipers

Till suddenly beyond the gorse

We glimpse the copse of stunted firs,

That tops the headland, round whose base

The cold tide flings a drowned man's bones

All day against the cliff's sheer face,

All night prolongs his lasting groans.

The Drowned—who in the copse once stood

Waiting the Dead: to end both vows—

Heard, as we hear, the split of wood

And shrieking of the writhen boughs

Grow shrill and shriller. Pass the spot,

The strained boughs arch toward collapse.

A whistle and—CRACK! there's the shot!

Or is it but a bough which snaps?

Ever, when we have left the gorse

And through the copse each hastening hies,

We, lovers on the self-same course,

Dare not look in each other's eyes.

VII

Before I woke I knew her gone

Though nothing nigh had stirred,

Now by the curtain inward blown

She stood not seen but heard

Where the faint moonlight dimmed or shone . . .

And neither spoke a word.

One hand against her mouth she pressed,

But could not staunch its cry,

The other knocked upon her breast

Impotently . . . while I

Glared rigid, labouring, possessed

And dared not ask her why.

VIII

Noon : and now rocks the summer sea

All idleness, one gust alone

Skates afar off and soundlessly

Is gone from me as you are gone.

No hull creeps on th' horizon's rim

No pond of smoke wreathes the far sky,

Only the dazzling sinuous swim

Of the fierce tide-maze scalds the eye.

Alone, aloft, unendingly

A peering gull on moveless wing

Floats silent by and again by

In search for some indefinite thing.

Each wave-line glittering through its run

Gives, in its plash where still pools lie

Upstaring at the downstaring sun,

A single harsh and sudden sigh.

And Oh, more lonely blows the breeze,

More empty shines the perfect sky,

More solitary sound the seas

Where two watched, where now watch but I!

IX

I love a flower which has no lover

The yellow sea-poppy is its name;

Spined leaves its glaucous green stem cover

Its flower is a yellow fitful flame.

Stung by the spray which leaps the shingle,

Torn by the winds that scour the beach,

Its roots with the salt sea-wrack mingle

Its leaves upon the bleached stones bleach.

Its desperate growth but few remember,

None misses it when it has died—

Scorched by the sun to a scant ember

Or wholly ravaged by the tide.

Yet I elect this weed to cherish

Nor any other would desire

Than this which must so shortly perish

Tortured by sea-foam or sky-fire.

Above this flower we too once bended,

Drawn to it by a subtle spell,

On whom the fire of heaven descended

Over whom the wave arose from hell.

Frantic, she snatched the ragged blossom,

Kissed it then with a wild, fierce kiss,

Pressed spine and flame into her bosom,

Crying, "The flower! our love is this!"

The grey waves crash. The wind whirls over.

The flower is withered from the beach,

Whose waves divide the loved and lover,

Whose wind blows louder than their speech.

X

The moon behind high tranquil leaves

Hides her sad head;

The dwindled water tinkles and grieves

In the stream's black bed

And where now, where are you sleeping?

The shadowy nightjar, hawking gnats,

Flickers or floats;

High in still air the flurrying bats

Repeat their wee notes,

And where now, where are you sleeping?

Silent lightning flutters in heaven,

Where quiet crowd

By the toil of an upper whirlwind driven

Dark legions of cloud;

In whose arms now are you sleeping?

The cloud makes, lidding the sky's wan hole,

The world a tomb;

Far out at sea long thunders roll

From gloom to dim gloom;

In whose arms now are you sleeping?

Rent clouds, like boughs, in darkness hang

Close overhead;

The foreland's bell-buoy begins to clang

As if for the dead:

Awake they, where you are sleeping?

The chasms crack; the heavens revolt;

With tearing sound

Bright bolt volleys on flaring bolt,

Wave and cloud clash; through deep, through vault

Huge thunders rebound!

But they wake not where you are sleeping.