"But if I found a man that could believe
In what he saw not, felt not, and yet knew,
From him I should take substance, and receive
Firmness and form relate to touch and view;
Then should I clothe me in the likeness true
Of that idea where his soul did cleave!"
"In me was every woman. I had power
Over the soul of every living man,
Such as no woman ever had in dower—
Could what no woman ever could, or can;
All women, I, the woman, still outran,
Outsoared, outsank, outreigned, in hall or bower.
"For I, though me he neither saw nor heard,
Nor with his hand could touch finger of mine,
Although not once my breath had ever stirred
A hair of him, could trammel brain and spine
With rooted bonds which Death could not untwine—
Or life, though hope were evermore deferred."
"For by his side I lay, a bodiless thing;
I breathed not, saw not, felt not, only thought,
And made him love me—with a hungering
After he knew not what—if it was aught
Or but a nameless something that was wrought
By him out of himself; for I did sing
"A song that had no sound into his soul;
I lay a heartless thing against his heart,
Giving him nothing where he gave his whole
Being to clothe me human, every part:
That I at last into his sense might dart,
Thus first into his living mind I stole.
"Ah, who was ever conquering Love but I!
Who else did ever throne in heart of man!
To visible being, with a gladsome cry
Waking, life's tremor through me throbbing ran!"
"Sudden I woke, nor knew the ghastly fear
That held me—not like serpent coiled about,
But like a vapour moist, corrupt, and drear,
Filling heart, soul, and breast and brain throughout;
My being lay motionless in sickening doubt,
Nor dared to ask how came the horror here.
"My past entire I knew, but not my now;
I understood nor what I was, nor where;
I knew what I had been: still on my brow
I felt the touch of what no more was there!
I was a fainting, dead, yet live Despair;
A life that flouted life with mop and mow!
"That I was a queen I knew right well,
And sometimes wore a splendour on my head
Whose flashing even dead darkness could not quell—
The like on neck and arms and girdle-stead;
And men declared a light my closed eyes shed
That killed the diamond in its silver cell."
"Hideously wet, my hair of golden hue
Fouled my fair hands: to have it swiftly shorn
I had given my rubies, all for me dug new—
No eyes had seen, and such no waist had worn!
For a draught of water from a drinking horn,
For one blue breath, I had given my sapphires blue!
"Nay, I had given my opals for a smock,
A peasant-maiden's garment, coarse and clean:
My shroud was rotting! Once I heard a cock
Lustily crow upon the hillock green
Over my coffin. Dulled by space between,
Came back an answer like a ghostly mock."
"For I had bathed in milk and honey-dew,
In rain from roses shook, that ne'er touched earth,
And ointed me with nard of amber hue;
Never had spot me spotted from my birth,
Or mole, or scar of hurt, or fret of dearth;
Never one hair superfluous on me grew.
"Fleeing cold whiteness, I would sit alone—
Not in the sun—I feared his bronzing light,
But in his radiance back around me thrown
By fulgent mirrors tempering his might;
Thus bathing in a moon-bath not too bright,
My skin I tinted slow to ivory tone.
"But now, all round was dark, dark all within!
My eyes not even gave out a phantom-flash;
My fingers sank in pulp through pulpy skin;
My body lay death-weltered in a mash
Of slimy horrors——"
"Ah, the two worlds! so strangely are they one,
And yet so measurelessly wide apart!
Oh, had I lived the bodiless alone
And from defiling sense held safe my heart,
Then had I scaped the canker and the smart,
Scaped life-in-death, scaped misery's endless moan!"