In the Little Room

London unfurls its incense-coloured duskBefore the panes, rich but a while agoWith the charred gold and the red ember-glowOf dying sunset. Houses quit the huskOf secrecy, which, through the day, returnsA blank to all enquiry: but at nightsThe cheerfulness of fire and lamp invitesThe darkness inward, curious of what burnsWith such a coloured life when all is dead--The daylight world outside, with overheadWhite clouds, and where we walk, the blazeOf wet and sunlit streets, shops and the streamOf glittering traffic--all that the nights erase,Colour and speed, surviving but in dream.

Outside the dusk, but in the little roomAll is alive with light, which brightly glintsOn curving cup or the stiff folds of chintz,Evoking its own whiteness. Shadows loom,Bulging and black, upon the walls, where hangRich coloured plates of beauties that appealLess to the sense of sight than to the feel,So moistly satin are their breasts. A pang,Almost of pain, runs through him when he seesHanging, a homeless marvel, next to these,The silken breastplate of a mandarin,Centuries dead, which he had given her.Exquisite miracle, when men could spinJay's wing and belly of the kingfisher!

In silence and as though expectantlyShe crouches at his feet, while he caressesHis light-drawn fingers with the touch of tressesSleeked round her head, close-banded lustrously,Save where at nape and temple the smooth brownSleaves out into a pale transparent mistOf hair and tangled light. So to exist,Poised 'twixt the deep of thought where spirits drownLife in a void impalpable nothingness,And, on the other side, the pain and stressOf clamorous action and the gnawing fireOf will, focal upon a point of earth--even thusTo sit, eternally without desireAnd yet self-known, were happiness for us.

She turns her head and in a flash of laughterLooks up at him: and helplessly he feelsThat life has circled with returning wheelsBack to a starting-point. Before and afterMerge in this instant, momently the same:For it was thus she leaned and laughing turnedWhen, manifest, the spirit of beauty burnedIn her young body with an inward flame,And first he knew and loved her. In full tideLife halts within him, suddenly stupefied.Sight blackness, lightning-struck; but blindly tenderHe draws her up to meet him, and she liesClose folded by his arms in glad surrender,Smiling, and with drooped head and half closed eyes.

"I give you all; would that I might give more."He sees the colour dawn across her cheeksAnd die again to white; marks as she speaksThe trembling of her lips, as though she boreSome sudden pain and hardly mastered it.Within his arms he feels her shuddering,Piteously trembling like some wild wood-thingCaught unawares. Compassion infiniteMounts up within him. Thus to hold and keepAnd comfort her distressed, lull her to sleepAnd gently kiss her brow and hair and eyesSeems love perfected--templed high and whiteAgainst the calm of golden autumn skies,And shining quenchlessly with vestal light.

But passion ambushed by the aerial shrineComes forth to dance, a hoofed obscenity,His satyr's dance, with laughter in his eye,And cruelty along the scarlet lineOf his bright smiling mouth. All uncontrolled,Love's rebel servant, he delights to beatThe maddening quick dry rhythm of goatish feetEven in the sanctuary, and makes boldTo mime himself the godhead of the place.He turns in terror from her trance-calmed face,From the white-lidded languor of her eyes,From lips that passion never shook before,But glad in the promise of her sacrifice:"I give you all; would that I might give more."

He is afraid, seeing her lie so still,So utterly his own; afraid lest sheShould open wide her eyes and let him seeThe passionate conquest of her virgin willShine there in triumph, starry-bright with tears.He thrusts her from him: face and hair and breast,Hands he had touched, lips that his lips had pressed,Seem things deadly to be desired. He fearsLest she should body forth in palpable shameThose dreams and longings that his blood, aflameThrough the hot dark of summer nights, had dreamedAnd longed. Must all his love, then, turn to this?Was lust the end of what so pure had seemed?He must escape, ah God! her touch, her kiss.