Love Poems and Others/Lilies in the Fire
LILIES IN THE FIRE
IAh, you stack of white lilies, all white and gold,I am adrift as a sunbeam, and without formOr having, save I light on you to warmYour pallor into radiance, flush your cold
White beauty into incandescence: youAre not a stack of white lilies to-night, but a whiteAnd clustered star transfigured by me to-night,And lighting these ruddy leaves like a star dropped through
The slender bare arms of the branches, your tire-maidensWho lift swart arms to fend me off; but I comeLike a wind of fire upon you, like to someStray whitebeam who on you his fire unladens.
And you are a glistening toadstool shining hereAmong the crumpled beech-leaves phosphorescent,My stack of white lilies burning incandescentOf me, a soft white star among the leaves, my dear.
IIIs it with pain, my dear, that you shudder so?Is it because I have hurt you with pain, my dear?
Did I shiver?—Nay, truly I did not know— A dewdrop may-be splashed on my face down here.
Why even now you speak through close-shut teeth.I have been too much for you—Ah, I remember!
The ground is a little chilly underneath The leaves—and, dear, you consume me all to an ember.
You hold yourself all hard as if my kissesHurt as I gave them—you put me away—
Ah never I put you away: yet each kiss hisses Hot as a drop of fire wastes me away.
IIII am ashamed, you wanted me not to-night—Nay, it is always so, you sigh with me.Your radiance dims when I draw too near, and my freeFire enters your petals like death, you wilt dead white.
Ah, I do know, and I am deep ashamed;You love me while I hover tenderlyLike clinging sunbeams kissing you: but seeWhen I close in fire upon you, and you are flamed
With the swiftest fire of my love, you are destroyed.’Tis a degradation deep to me, that my bestSoul’s whitest lightning which should bright attestGod stepping down to earth in one white stride,
Means only to you a clogged, numb burden of fleshHeavy to bear, even heavy to uprearAgain from earth, like lilies wilted and sereFlagged on the floor, that before stood up so fresh.