After Duras

"We go back to our house. We are lovers. 
We cannot stop loving each other."

I come to confiscate your love. 
What will you do?

Small shrubs grow in the blackened yard.
Sun, which is yellow, shines in through the windows, now barred.

You were watching me eat. 
Put your tongue in my mouth then retract it.

We were waiting for our recompense.
But everyone knows love is bankrupt.

On the billboard in front of us: breasts.
The empty middles of the mannequins that peered out through the glass. 

Reprehensibly, I mouthed the words: I love you.

All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
     And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o’er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay,
     Beside the ruin'd tower.

The moonshine, stealing o’er the scene,
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
     My own dear Genevieve!

She lean’d against the armèd man,
The statue of the armèd Knight;
She stood and listen’d to my lay,
     Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best whene’er I sing
     The songs that make her grieve.

I play’d a soft and doleful air;
I sang an old and moving story—
An old rude song, that suited well
     That ruin wild and hoary.

She listen’d with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew I could not choose
     But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he woo’d
     The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined: and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another’s love,
     Interpreted my own.

She listen’d with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes, and modest grace;
And she forgave me, that I gazed
     Too fondly on her face!

But when I told the cruel scorn
That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,
And that he cross’d the mountain-woods,
     Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade,
And sometimes starting up at once
     In green and sunny glade—

There came and look’d him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a Fiend,
     This miserable Knight!

And that, unknowing what he did,
He leap’d amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death
     The Lady of the Land;—

And how she wept and clasp’d his knees;
And how she tended him in vain—
And ever strove to expiate
     The scorn that crazed his brain;—

And that she nursed him in a cave;
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest leaves
     A dying man he lay;—

His dying words—but when I reach’d
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faltering voice and pausing harp
     Disturb’d her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrill’d my guileless Genevieve;
The music and the doleful tale,
     The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,
     Subdued and cherish’d long!

She wept with pity and delight,
She blush’d with love and virgin shame;
And like the murmur of a dream,
     I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved—she stepp’d aside,
As conscious of my look she stept—
Then suddenly, with timorous eye
     She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms,
She press’d me with a meek embrace;
And bending back her head, look’d up,
     And gazed upon my face.

’Twas partly love, and partly fear,
And partly ’twas a bashful art,
That I might rather feel, than see,
     The swelling of her heart.

I calm’d her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,
     My bright and beauteous Bride.

Come when the nights are bright with stars
    Or when the moon is mellow;
Come when the sun his golden bars
    Drops on the hay-field yellow.
Come in the twilight soft and gray,
Come in the night or come in the day,
Come, O love, whene’er you may,
    And you are welcome, welcome.

You are sweet, O Love, dear Love,
You are soft as the nesting dove.
Come to my heart and bring it rest
As the bird flies home to its welcome nest.

Come when my heart is full of grief
    Or when my heart is merry;
Come with the falling of the leaf
    Or with the redd’ning cherry.
Come when the year’s first blossom blows,
Come when the summer gleams and glows,
Come with the winter’s drifting snows,
    And you are welcome, welcome.

I lie here thinking of you:—

the stain of love
is upon the world!
Yellow, yellow, yellow
it eats into the leaves,
smears with saffron
the horned branches that lean
heavily
against a smooth purple sky!
There is no light
only a honey-thick stain
that drips from leaf to leaf
and limb to limb
spoiling the colors
of the whole world—

you far off there under
the wine-red selvage of the west!

When April bends above me
And finds me fast asleep,
Dust need not keep the secret
A live heart died to keep.

When April tells the thrushes,
The meadow-larks will know,
And pipe the three words lightly
To all the winds that blow.

Above his roof the swallows,
In notes like far-blown rain,
Will tell the little sparrow
Beside his window-pane.

O sparrow, little sparrow,
When I am fast asleep,
Then tell my love the secret
That I have died to keep.

He was a boy when first we met;
     His eyes were mixed of dew and fire,
And on his candid brow was set
     The sweetness of a chaste desire:
But in his veins the pulses beat
     Of passion, waiting for its wing,
As ardent veins of summer heat
     Throb through the innocence of spring.

As manhood came, his stature grew,
     And fiercer burned his restless eyes,
Until I trembled, as he drew
     From wedded hearts their young disguise.
Like wind-fed flame his ardor rose,
     And brought, like flame, a stormy rain:
In tumult, sweeter than repose,
     He tossed the souls of joy and pain.

So many years of absence change!
     I knew him not when he returned:
His step was slow, his brow was strange,
     His quiet eye no longer burned.
When at my heart I heard his knock,
     No voice within his right confessed:
I could not venture to unlock
     Its chambers to an alien guest.

Then, at the threshold, spent and worn
     With fruitless travel, down he lay:
And I beheld the gleams of morn
     On his reviving beauty play.
I knelt, and kissed his holy lips,
     I washed his feet with pious care;
And from my life the long eclipse
     Drew off; and left his sunshine there.

He burns no more with youthful fire;
     He melts no more in foolish tears;
Serene and sweet, his eyes inspire
     The steady faith of balanced years.
His folded wings no longer thrill,
     But in some peaceful flight of prayer:
He nestles in my heart so still,
     I scarcely feel his presence there.

O Love, that stern probation o’er,
     Thy calmer blessing is secure!
Thy beauteous feet shall stray no more,
     Thy peace and patience shall endure!
The lightest wind deflowers the rose,
     The rainbow with the sun departs,
But thou art centred in repose,
     And rooted in my heart of hearts!